This is Part 3 of our exploration of texts used by the University of Maine, Farmington course, U.S. Women’s History. We examine two of the Bedford Series in History and Culture: THE TRIANGLE FIRE by Jo Ann Argersinger and TITLE IX by Susan Ware.
THE TRIANGLE FIRE
When we think of unions, we likely think of men in the trades. The construction, electric and plumbing trades particularly sit at the forefront of our thinking. We think of these organizations as protecting male workers and their interests. We also see them as male bastions, where the few women who do join their ranks are hassled and goaded for years before being even grudgingly accepted by just a few fellow members. However, women strikers and union members actually galvanized the men, and, much of what we know as workplace protections today stem from the public outcry as the result of what is known as the “Triangle Fire,” in which 146 workers were killed, the majority of whom were women.
In the factories, which were in the upper floors of New York buildings, girls as young as twelve worked days the hours of which equaled their age in years. Conditions were cramped, sometimes unsanitary, and included spaces that were sweltering in summer and cruelly cold in winter. To meet space regulations that were in place, the cubic space of a room was considered, not the floor space alone. This meant that with higher ceilings, more equipment and workers were crammed into floors not meant to accommodate such crowding. Wages were paltry, and companies regularly dismissed workers who complained, attempted to change conditions or who were even thought to be considering union membership. In 1909, twenty thousand women factory workers went on strike for recognition for the ILGWU (International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union), better wages and improved working conditions. This was the first strike by women for women and through the strike efforts, barriers such as ethnic differences between workers were put aside. The strike of 1909 influenced male cloakmakers, who went on strike the following year. One of the protest songs, states “and we gave courage to the men, who carried on in nineteen-ten.”
On Saturday, March 25, 1911 at closing time, a fire started. The Triangle Fire was the deadliest work-related tragedy in NYC from its occurrence until the 9/11/01 tragedy. Public outrage continued for years after the Triangle Fire. The media continued coverage in newspapers and magazines. When no responsibility was actually taken by anyone involved in factory ownership or within the City itself, writers posted headlines such as, “147 Dead, Nobody Guilty.”
Even if the owners of the company could not be prosecuted successfully, the public outrage was such that committees and groups formed in response. Women such as Pauline Newman, Clara Lemlich and Rose Schneiderman served on the newly minted Factory Investigating Commission (FIC). These women forced others on the committee to tour factory buildings and see firsthand the lack of safety procedures and cramped conditions. Frances Perkins witnessed the fire. She later served as the first female industrial commissioner and then as the first female secretary of labor under Franklin Roosevelt first as Governor of New York and the latter when he was President.
Elizabeth Dutcher, who worked with the WTUL (Women’s Trade Union League), the Red Cross and the ILGWU, investigated the lives of the shirtwaist makers who were victims of the Triangle fire. It was thought that women who worked in the factories often did so for frivolous reasons, such as spending money for desires versus needs, or that they worked for something to do before getting married and being supported by men. The reality was that wages for most workers went to supporting families, whether in the U.S. or with funds sent to families in their country of origin. In Dutcher’s account, she asked about women factory workers: “…why is she becoming more and more in some parts of our community…the dependable family bread winner?” In answer to her question, Dutcher claimed the reason is that women “will submit to worse conditions, longer hours, and shorter wages than men.” She then asks, rhetorically, whether it is the employer who forces these conditions, knowing that women are part of “a group without political rights, who may be oppressed with impunity, and forced to underbid her own men-folks?”
In The Triangle Fire, we learn not only about a tragedy, but also about the courageous women who, even without voting rights at the time, sought to improve working conditions. We see that throughout history women have worked to support their families financially. We learn about women’s contribution to the labor movement, and see the pivotal role women have played in yet another part of history.
TITLE IX
Title IX seems almost synonymous with women’s athletics programs. However, this “sleeper” piece of legislation was enacted originally with the intent to benefit women in education, not just sports affiliated with high schools and colleges. Patsy Mink, a representative from Hawaii who had been denied medical school admission on account of her gender, saw the measure as finally bringing the Civil Rights Act to its logical conclusion to include educational institutions and to expand protections to include gender as another aspect against which entities could not discriminate. The law has been fraught from the start and has met with resistance especially from American football programs. Each step of the way, those against Title IX have claimed its enforcement pushes men from programs as it helps women secure funding and/or places at the table, in the lecture hall or on playing fields.
With funding issues across every area of our society today, enforcement of Title IX continues to pit women against men, rather than deal with the issue of funding itself. Continually, American football programs claim they bring in the most revenue, and thus should be exempt from Title IX. Countless research into the actual cost versus the revenue brought in by such programs has shown these claims to be false. Instead, colleges cut minor men’s athletic programs in order to establish or fund programs for women. Thus, they contribute to the misguided idea that Title IX gives to women what it requires be taken from men. This is just business as usual to feminists who are used to this kind of rhetoric from male-dominated sports programs, such as football. The courts continue to support this “reverse” discrimination by not hearing or deciding against men’s programs that sue for equal funding. Time and again, court cases have claimed women’s programs can sue and that Title IX is for the protection of women, rather than to assure equality for both men and women.
There have been many books written about the differences Title IX has made for women. Princeton’s first female athletic director, Merrily Dean, described these changes stating that she “was called a tomboy” and that her “daughters are called athletes.” Her description is succinct and poignant. It shows how far we’ve come in just a few short decades with a piece of legislation that extended civil rights protections enacted just a decade earlier. The improvements of Title IX extend to the classroom and professors’ offices, not just the locker room. Women have found a place in the halls of academia as students and also as professors as a result of the legislation. Women were categorically denied desks in classrooms and were never considered for tenure or for department chair positions. With Title IX, they were able to demonstrate evidence of discrimination, and won hard-earned positions both as students and as teachers. Today, women often out-number men in colleges and universities, including graduate and professional programs. Title IX contributed to this state of affairs.
In both of these books, we are reminded it is not that women have been “kept home” or otherwise been relegated to the sidelines, per se. We must realize that scholarship has largely excluded the contributions of women. Not only have we ignored the stories of women, the stories we have ignored in history departments and publishing houses have been largely stories that stem from conditions of poverty, or other minority status, as well. As we move forward, and find more women in academia producing histories such as these two books in the Bedford Series, I hope we will see more of an inclusive, holistic history. We must go back to our universities and textbook publishers and demand the full story, the full HIS and HER story, from all socio-economic tiers and all experiences.
