My latest musical obsession is “Fire in My Mouth;” composer Julia Wolfe’s interpretation of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire of 1911. But I found myself not just thinking of how that nightmare transformed how we work, but also of how primarily single women working in factories transformed our society.
Rebecca Traister speaks on this in her book “All the Single Ladies” and I echoed it in my book “Short Chick with Glasses.” As young women flocked to the cities to take jobs in factories that then had no safety regulations or codes they were compelled to abide by, they took to wearing different clothing and different hairstyles for their own safety. Non-factory working ladies started to copy that style, and, thus, fashion changed. But that is not all.
As these women worked, and roomed together in the boarding homes set up to accommodate the influx of these newly arriving factory workers, it stands to reason that on their off days they went out together as well. Being new arrivals, they probably did not know anybody else in the city after all. So they went out together to restaurants and other entertainment. Or maybe just to walk around and see the sights of a place new to them.
The more this happened, the more accustomed to, the less anybody took notice of, a group of apparently single women out together with not a man with them to be seen.
And you can draw a straight line from that to, many many years later, in the early 2000s, my besties and I heading out every Friday or Saturday night (sometimes both) for a meal and dancing.
Their terror trying to escape the fire that day brought about sweeping, incredibly significant and much needed changes in almost every part of our society.
Is it foolish to hope that that might bring them at least some level of comfort?
