Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire

Fire broke out at closing time on the eighth floor of the Asch Building near Washington Square, where the Triangle Waist Company employed hundreds of garment workers, most of them young Jewish and Italian immigrant women. Doors were locked, the fire escape collapsed and ladders reached only the seventh floor; 146 people died, 123 of them women and girls. Public anger led New York to pass dozens of factory safety laws.