The Factory Girls: A Kaleidoscopic Account of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By Christine Seifert
Lexile = 1040

I didn't know anything about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911 until I read A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner. By the way, LOVED that book.... read my review HERE. The devastating fire that happened in the factory located in New York was the turning point in union organizing and laws concerning factory safety and child labor.

Factory Girls follows five girls that worked at the factory.... some lived and some died. I was interested mostly in the other characters in the tragedy: the greedy owners of the factories, the consumers, who (like us) demand cheap fashion and don't realize the cost, and the powerful, brave women that lobbied for change.

This really isn't a book I would pick up for fun reading, but it provides background and context for other things I am reading. I also have Flesh and Blood so Cheap here in the library which covers the same topic. See a great interview with a descendant of a victim of the fire HERE.