Rose rosenfeld freedman

Learning Objectives

5 The Progressive Era

Paul Thompson/Archive Photos/Getty Images

Female garment workers in Cincinnati sell newspapers to

support their fellow workers in the International Ladies’

Garment Workers’ Union, who are striking in New York, circa

1910.

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Understand the various motives of Progressive reformers.

• Explain the concept of efficiency and its relation to reform.

• Discuss the need for urban reform and the methods proposed to solve the problems of

cities.

• Understand the role of women and middle­class professionals in driving the reform

agenda.

• Discuss the participation of women, workers, and minorities in Progressive reform.

• Consider the role of democracy during the Progressive era.

Kheel Center, Cornell University

Rose Rosenfeld Freedman

managed to escape the

devastating Triangle

Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911.

American Lives: Rose Rosenfeld Freedman

Late in the afternoon of Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire started on the 8th floor of a 10­story building in

the Greenwich Village area of New York. It quickly spread to the 9th floor, where Rose Rosenfeld Freedman

and her coworkers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which occupied the building’s top three floors, were

trapped by both flames and locked doors (Ryan, 2006).

In rooms filled with cloth, scraps, and oiled machinery, they found little means to escape. The elevator did

not reach the 9th floor, and the one accessible stairway quickly became jammed with panicked young

women. To the horror of those watching from the street, many women jumped from the windows with their

skirts on fire, hoping to reach the safety of a fire department net or perhaps preferring the impact to

burning to death.

Freedman was one of the lucky few who made it to the crowded staircase. Instead of trying to fight her way

down, she went up to the 10th floor, where the factory managers worked, and then out onto the roof. From

there a fireman lifted her to the safety of the building next door, and she descended safely to the street

(Martin, 2001). Many of her coworkers were not as fortunate; the fire claimed the lives of 146 people,

including 23 men and 123 women.

Rose Rosenfeld Freedman was born in 1893 in a small town north of

Vienna, Austria. Her father ran a successful dried foods business and

chose to bring the entire Rosenfeld family to New York City in 1909.

Representing larger patterns of immigration, the Rosenfelds were

drawn to better opportunities in America. Although her family was

wealthier than most immigrants, as a teenager she chose to work at

the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where she was given the high

responsibility of attaching buttons to the shirts. In choosing factory

work, Freedman joined countless other young women who worked in

crowded and dangerous industrial conditions.

The company’s 500 garment workers spent 8 to 12 hours a day, 6 days

a week, sewing ladies’ blouses, known as shirtwaists. The rooms were

small, with little ventilation, and the managers often locked the

workers inside to keep them on task. The building had no sprinklers,

and there had never been a fire drill. Smoking was forbidden, but a

number of the men who worked in the factory were known to light a

cigar or pipe while on the job. Fire marshals later speculated that a

match or improperly extinguished cigar or cigarette started the blaze.

In the tragedy’s aftermath, an outraged public demanded reform.

Within a few years of the fire, New York adopted strict worker safety

protection laws that formed a model for laws passed in numerous

states. Freedman never returned to factory work. She married, had

three children, and later worked for an insurance company, but she

never stopped speaking out about the events of that fateful day. She

refuted the company’s denial that the doors had been locked, and when company officials were later