Triangle: The Fire That Changed America

Born in Denver, Colorado in 1961, David Von Drehle is a graduate of Oxford University and is currently a journalist and author. His books include Among the Lowest of the Dead: Inside Death Row (1995), Deadlock: The Inside Story of America’s Closest Presidential Election (2001), and Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year (2012). In 2003, Von Drehle authored Triangle: The Fire that Changed America, which examines the organized labor movement within New York’s garment industry just after the turn of the 20th century, focusing on the tragic fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911.

Max Blanck and Isaac Harris were the owners of several shirtwaist manufacturing companies, including the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, which they founded together in 1902 and grew into the largest such operation in New York. Blanck and Harris were the primary opponents, and most aggressive holdout owners, of the industry-wide general strike of shirtwaist makers in 1909. After 146 workers were killed in a fire at their Triangle factory in 1911, the partners faced manslaughter charges due to an illegally locked door during working hours but were ultimately acquitted.