That indignity, and the crowded and unsanitary factory floor, led many of the 400 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory workers to go on strike in 1909 as they began to claim their rights to respect, better wages and safer working conditions. They won concessions on pay, but little else from the factory owners, who kept the workplace in a shambles.

And the doors locked.

Two years later, when a fire started in a wicker wastebasket, many workers didn’t stand a chance: 146 died, most of them young Italian and Jewish women newly arrived in America; 17 were men. It was the worst disaster in New York City until 9/11...

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