by Lynne | Aug 14, 2012 | Uncategorized
Identifying the Dead
In February of 2011, a story appeared in the New York Times. With the hundredth anniversary of the Triangle fire a month away, eyes were focused on a stone monument in the Cemetery of the Evergreens on the border of Brooklyn and Queens. The monument was erected to the garment workers who died in the Triangle fire but were never identified.
Photos courtesy of the Kheel Center, Cornell University:
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/
There is a bas-relief figure of a kneeling woman, head bowed, mourning for the victims so badly charred that relatives could not recognize them. Nearly a century later, the five women and one man, all buried in coffins under the Evergreens monument remained unknown, although relatives and descendants knew their loved ones had never returned from the shirtwaist factory.
Now, thanks to a man named Michael Hirsch, the remains have been identified. It wasn’t forensics that helps identify the bodies, but rather the exhaustive work of one very persistent, obsessive researcher. For more details, check New York Times article: “100 Years Later, the Roll of the Dead in a Factory Fire is Complete:”
by Lynne | Aug 7, 2012 | Uncategorized
A Better Way to Die?
The Asch Building which housed the Triangle Factory (top three floors) was said to be fireproof. The deadly fire on March 25 was not its first. A series of fires starting in 1902 destroyed the contents of the factory. Triangle owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris were well covered insurance-wise, however.
In the novel, The Triangle Murders, Fiona tracks down the earlier fires and puts her own life in danger.
The Asch Building (Photographer: unknown, March 25, 1911, Copyright: Kheel Center, Cornell University, http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/) It was also not the only unsafe building where so many young immigrant women worked six or seven days each week.
Once the fire broke out, it spread so quickly that there was little hope for escape. Even the one fire escape turned deadly.
The flimsy fire escape ladder descended close to the building forcing those fleeing to struggle through flames and past warped iron window shutters stuck open across their path. Sections of ladder which ended two stories above the ground, twisted and collapsed under the weight of workers trying to escape the fire killing many who had chosen it as their lifeline. (Photographer: unknown, 1911, Copyright: Kheel Center, Cornell University, http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/)
Fiona, trapped, watched in horror as her friends fell to their deaths below as the ladder broke.
Tragically, although the fire engines arrived quickly, their ladders and hoses reached only to the sixth floor, some thirty feet too short. Their attempts at nets and tarpaulins below were futile. Jumpers tore right through them or suffered fatal bodily harm by the vicious landing.
by Lynne | Jul 31, 2012 | The Triangle Murders - Forensics
Forensic science, often called forensics, is the application of science to the legal system.
This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action. The word itself is derived from the Latin forensis, meaning “of or before the forum.” In Roman times, criminals would present their case before a group of individuals in the Forum.
Today, with the preponderance of CSI programs and movies, forensics is a household word. Law enforcement and crime-lab teams, however, view these programs as a hindrance since it colors the public’s (and the jury’s) view of the real work involved.
In 1911, fire forensics (in fact, all forensics) was in its infancy. In The Triangle Murders, Cormac Mead searched the two destroyed floors at the Triangle factory for evidence that would prove his wife was murdered. If he suspected arson, what would he have been looking for? Probably things similar to what fire investigators look for today when investigating fires: evidence of accelerants, igniters, pieces of a bomb and explosive residues (if an explosion is suspected), point of origin, and point of entry and exit of the arsonist (if arson is suspected.) Interestingly, unlike crime suspects who are innocent until proven guilty, fires are considered suspicious until proven otherwise.
An officer stands at the Asch Building’s 9th floor window after the Triangle fire. Sewing machines, drive shafts, and other wreckage of the Triangle factory fire are piled in the center of the blaze-scoured room. (Photographer: Brown Brothers, 1911, Copyright: Kheel Center, Cornell University, http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/.)
This officer could have been Cormac Mead.
The 240 employees sewing shirtwaists on the ninth floor had their escape blocked by paired sewing machines on 75-foot long tables, back-to-back chairs and work baskets in the aisles. Walking space was so inadequate that many had to waste precious time climbing over tables to get to the stairs, fire escape, elevators and windows that might lead to safety. (Photographer: Brown Brothers, 1911 Copyright: Kheel Center, Cornell University, http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/.)
It is also rumored that some doors were locked to keep the garment workers from stealing.
by Lynne | Jul 24, 2012 | The Triangle Murders - History
Short but Deadly Burn
Did you realize that the fire at the Triangle factory lasted only half an hour, from the initial spark to final burning embers?
Near closing time, the fire erupted on the eighth floor in a bin of scrap materials and fabrics. A steady flow of wind rushed through the elevator shafts from the street and fed the flames. Smoke began its way upward to the ninth floor. Garment workers, seamstresses, mostly women and young girls, raced to the exit door on Washington Place. It was locked.
Later, some claimed the doors were kept locked so the girls didn’t steal the fabrics. Within minutes the eighth and ninth floors were raging infernos. In my next blog, I’ll talk about the forensics of fire.
by Lynne | Jul 23, 2012 | Did You Know?
From TIME EXPOSURE: Did you know. . . ?
Dunker Church, famous scene of battle at Antietam, Sharpsburg, Maryland, 1863
. . . that many believe John Wilkes Booth was not the leader of the Lincoln assassination plot, and not just a zealot who acted on personal beliefs. Rather, he was a pawn in a larger conspiracy and was, perhaps, hired by an organization who had motives other than political?
. . . that Alexander Gardner, Civil War photographer and photojournalist extraordinaire, did indeed work in an official capacity with Allan Pinkerton and the new intelligence network that was the forerunner of the Secret Service?
. . . that on the eve of the first battle of Manassas in 1861, only one assistant surgeon was assigned to a regiment of twelve hundred men?
