The names Isaac Harris and Max Blanck probably don’t resonate with New Yorkers today.
Yet 114 years ago, everyone knew them: Harris and Blanck (below) owned the Triangle Waist Company on Greene Street, where a devastating fire killed 146 employees on March 25, 1911.
From that horrific tragedy rose a stronger workers’ rights movement and new city laws mandating safer workplaces.
But what happened to Harris and Blanck, both of whom were in the company’s 10th floor offices that warm Saturday afternoon and managed to survive the fire unscathed?
Like many of their “operators,” as the girls who worked the rows of sewing machines were known, they were Jewish immigrants.
Both started as workers in the growing garment industry in the 1890s and then became business owners, making a fortune manufacturing ladies blouses and earning the nickname the Shirtwaist Kings.
They certainly were easy targets to blame, and both men were indicted on first and second degree manslaughter charges, thanks to evidence uncovered by detectives that a door on the 9th floor leading to a fire exit had been locked, a violation of law.
Protected by guards and represented by a big-name lawyer at their December 1911 trial, Harris and Blanck each took the stand, countering the testimony of surviving workers who claimed that the door was always locked to prevent theft.
On December 27, they were acquitted. “Isaac Harris and Max Blanck dropped limply into their chairs as their wives began quietly sobbing behind them,” wrote David Von Drehle in Triangle.
To avoid an angry mob of family members outside the courthouse demanding justice, the two men were smuggled through a side exit away from their waiting limousines. They went into the subway instead.
Immediately they relaunched the Triangle company on Fifth Avenue and 16th Street.
But their names made headlines again. “All of their revenue went into paying off their celebrity lawyer, and they were sued in early 1912 over their inability to pay a $206 water bill,” states PBS.org.
“Despite these struggles, the two men ultimately collected a large chunk of insurance money—$60,000 more than the fire had actually cost them in damages. Harris and Blanck had made a profit from the fire of $400 per victim.”
In 1913, at a new factory on 23rd Street, Blanck paid a $25 fine for locking a door during working hours, and he was warned during an inspection that factory was rife with fire hazards.
A year later, the two were caught sewing fraudulent labels into their shirtwaists that claimed the clothes had been made under sound conditions.
By 1918, after agreeing to pay $75 per deceased employee to families that had brought civil suits against them, they threw in the towel and disbanded the company.
[Photos 1-3: Kheel Center, Cornell University; 4-5: Brown Brothers]
Tags: fires in New York City, Isaac Harris, Max Blanck, New York in 1911, Owners of the Triangle Factory, Triangle fire, Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Triangle Waist Company
Ephemeral New York 
March 23, 2015 at 9:41 am |
The Congressional Cemetery, outside of Washington, D.C., holds a marker honoring the lost lives from the ‘Triangle Shirt Factory Fire’; Closer to the actual blazing building – there is a stone in Brooklyn at the Evergreens Cemetery as well as another at Mt Zion in Maspeth, N.Y.
As for the two owners of the company, they are where they deserve to be – LOST. Their infamous deeds should never be forgotten – not only for sake of workers in our nation, but those toiling in sweat shops around the globe. Think of this tragedy when you buy your next blouse / shirt and it was sewn in China, India or Viet Nam or… Then, reconsider and buy Union-made apparel from the USA!
March 23, 2015 at 2:47 pm |
But their names made headlines again. Not “there”.
March 23, 2015 at 4:03 pm |
Does anyone know if these factory owners- were German immigrants? I’m looking at the various Jewish groups in nyc at the time and would like to “locate” them- ethnically? thanks
March 23, 2015 at 4:25 pm |
My understanding is that they were Russian-born Jews, per Von Drehle’s book and other sources.
March 23, 2015 at 7:02 pm |
Yet another incident where the criminally negligent owners and management evade successful prosecution. We still see this today regardless of the more stringent regulations and laws.
March 24, 2015 at 2:53 am |
Those responsible should have been charged, tried, found guilty and punished with very long prison sentences at hard labor. Even after the Triangle fire, one of them hadn’t learned a thing…still locked a factory door.
March 24, 2015 at 3:28 am |
I have no connection with this business – however, if you are interested in ‘Fires in NYC’ – here is a fascinating story that accompanys a T-shirt design. (Stay with me on this one…HA!) The blaze began in a WHALE OIL Company – destroyed hundreds of buildings, took a couple dozen lives. Because of this disaster, all new construction was to have been made of brick or stone – no wood. The shirt was created so the story would be better known. Read & learn more…
March 25, 2015 at 1:55 am |
A lot of conditions have improved in the past 100 years for workers, but sadly, some things, like greed, have not changed at all.
April 2, 2015 at 9:00 pm |
In addition to Jewish immigrant workers, the Triangle Waist Company also employed many Italian immigrant workers, many of whom also died in the fire. The two Italian elevator operators are credited with saving many lives; they crammed people into the tiny elevator to take them to street level, and returned again and again, to retrieve more.
In 2010, there was a fire in a Bangladesh sweatshop making clothes for American corporations, which mirrored the Triangle in all particulars. (America has outsourced sweatshops). For the very large march and memorial for the 100th anniversary, in 2011, red carnations were left at the Triangle site during the ceremony, in addition to the 146 white carnations, each with the name of a Triangle worker who died, which are left.
A fire bell is rung for each death, and the name and age are called out, and a fire truck ladder is raised to the sixth floor (the highest they could go at the time); the fire started on the eighth floor.
Isaac Harris and Max Blanck had refused, unlike many other factory owners, to negotiate union contracts consequent to the strikes for better wages and safe conditions known as the Uprising of the 20,000, in 1909, so there was no union; the doors were locked from the outside to prevent union organizers from access to workers.
This left women not incinerated where they sat to choose between jumping to their deaths or staying to burn alive. After the fire, the factory owners who, as noted, escaped prison, opened another factory, around the corner on University and recreated the exact same conditions.
In 1909, NY state passed legislation making employers liable for injury/death caused in the workplace. It was rescinded on March 24, 1911, the day before the Triangle fire–one of the reasons, besides political and economic status, that these men avoided justice. Until September 11, 2001, it was the worst industrial disaster in America.
The fire–seen by Frances Perkins, the first woman to head the US Labor Dept, and creator of the New Deal (FDR just signed it)–also resulted in the creation of the NY State Labor Dept and the first Workers’ Compensation for those injured and killed on the job. One of the posters used by the NY State Labor Dept shows a photo of the collapsed fire escape ladder with the title, “Born of Fire”.
Every year, on the anniversary, members and volunteers of Remember the Triangle, go to the locations where factory workers lived, and chalk their names, birth/death dates, any other known information, and that “here” a Triangle worker lived, whether or not the original building still stands.
In honor of the centennial, the Forward (in 1911 was a Yiddish language newspaper; now in English) translated the edition which reported the fire, as part of it’s regular edition, and made copies available to conferences and educational groups.
I disagree with the comment that the names of the factory owners should be erased. They should be known and remembered as examples of the consequences of greed and the abuse of power for profit. Behaviors which continue to maim and kill workers, enforce poverty and wreak havoc on the environment. To erase history–and the names of those who do harm–is to erase memory and to lose the lesson and to redirect the future.
April 3, 2015 at 2:47 am |
This was a powerful commentary. I am especially touched at learning of the chalk-inscribed names at the homeplaces of the lost girl’s homes… This brings their deaths back into the lives of their old neighborhoods and into the modern world of today’s generation.
June 9, 2018 at 5:31 pm |
“The two Italian elevator operators are credited with saving many lives; they crammed people into the tiny elevator to take them to street level, and returned again and again, to retrieve more.”
Unfortunately, there’s a reason you don’t take the elevator during a fire. The metal warped, and stalled the elevator, forcing young workers to jump to their death trying to grab elevator cables to shimmy down to the ground floor.
April 17, 2015 at 10:34 pm |
Triangle connections with Hartford CT
September 9, 2016 at 7:50 am |
[…] Through an organization called the Women’s Trade Union League, Morgan and Belmont helped mobilize and support a strike by workers from the Triangle Waist Company (yep, that Triangle company). […]
December 14, 2016 at 2:58 am |
I remember learning about this in school. If you’re interested in learning more about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire a great book is Flesh and Blood So Cheap by: Albert Marrin. Margret Peterson Haddix wrote a great novel about it, Uprising. It’s a sobering read but is so good.
December 1, 2017 at 5:52 pm |
we are learning about this in school so sad
December 1, 2017 at 8:15 pm |
EPHEMERAL…
What a tremendous compliment. ‘We are learning about this is school…” This means you, dear Ephemeral – are not only informing your everyday readership but you are educating the youth of tomorrow’s world! This must give you great joy – and an understanding of how important is your responsibility in telling the stories of NYC’s yesterdays.
December 1, 2017 at 8:27 pm |
You know, I very clearly remember reading about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in school when I was in the second grade. Today, people would assume a 7 year old would be scared or upset by the story. But it made me aware of what work and life was like long before I was born. It was hard and dangerous if you were on the lower rungs of the social order, and that really affected me. So I applaud teachers who aren’t afraid to introduce topics like this to young kids…it gives them a sense of perspective.
January 20, 2018 at 7:10 am |
Max Blanck continued in the garment industry several years after the fire. He was indicted on charges of grand larcey in April 1922 and convicted in December 1923. He was sentenced to 6 months to 3 years in state prison. Whether or not he served his sentence-I don’t know-(I don’t have access to those records). The family changed the spelling of their surname to “Blank” and moved to California. On another note- I would just like to mention the Maltese Family, and their efforts over the course of many years-to keep the memory of this tragedy and their vicitims alive, many, many years prior to the formation of the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition- The Maltese Family (they lost their grandmother Caterina and 2 great aunts Rosaria and Lucia in the fire.), formed the “Triangle Survivors Group” back in the 1950’s-The group name was changed to the “Triangle Fire Memorial Association”a few years ago. . Mr Vincent Maltese was instrumental in getting the (Asch) Brown Building designated as a National Historic Landmark and he was a personal friend of “Triangel Fire” author Leon Stein.
April 19, 2023 at 9:04 pm |
I guess that’s why I never found his grave to desecrate in New York. No need to do anything if Blanck is buried in California. Punishment enough.
January 20, 2018 at 7:13 am |
correction: grand larceny
January 20, 2018 at 7:18 am |
Correction” “Triangle” (sorry for the type’o’s 🙂
February 2, 2018 at 8:31 pm |
Ancestry:
1940 United States Federal Census
CENSUS & VOTER LISTSView Image
NAME: Max N Blank
BIRTH: abt 1870 – Russia
RESIDENCE: 1940 – Los Angeles Township, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
February 5, 2018 at 4:16 am |
Appalling that this horrific tragedy went without real justice. The owners saving their own necks and setting up the same scenatio asap.
New factory…locked door. What does this say about them? They should have been imprisoned…not rewarded with insurance money. Strikers had voiced their concerns about their working conditions. How many burned to death while the 2 owners skittled off the roof like cowards not caring about anybody else….and. to think at least 50% of the shirtwaste
Workers were just young teenagers….with their hopes and dreams….all burned to death. I say a curse on both your houses…may your names be cursed!
March 1, 2018 at 11:11 pm |
Who is the author? I am trying to cite it for a school project, but I can’t find the author anywhere. Thanks!
June 9, 2018 at 5:40 pm |
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/feb/17/news/mn-26619
Interesting article on the last Triangle survivor, who died in 2001 at the age of 107.
November 5, 2018 at 6:12 am |
[…] that didn’t was the Triangle Waist Company—where a little more than a year later in March 1911, 146 workers perished in a fire at the Greene […]
March 20, 2019 at 9:08 am |
Max died as Norman M Blanc in California. I think his wife Bella changed her name to Betty from Bella unless he was remarried. Her Obituary in 1954 says she was an immigrant from Austria and lists her children as Ned ( they had had a son named Nathaniel) Ruth Sharp, Mimi Krasner and Nancy Addlington. Sister Celia Lerman and brothers Harry and Norman Rosen. No list of a husband but Findagrave has him listed dying 10 July 1942
June 8, 2020 at 12:49 am |
I looked up Blanc at Find a grave…I came across that Harris married a cousin of Blanc’s wife..so I checked find a grave and found that Isaac Harris [1880-1954] is buried in the same cemetery …their lawyer died 1940…..
March 9, 2021 at 9:36 am |
nice
March 8, 2022 at 4:20 am |
[…] las mujeres habían quedado atrapadas al estar bloqueadas las salidas. Los dueños de la fábrica, Isaac Harris y Max Blanck, que trabajaban en las oficinas de décimo piso, fueron avisados por teléfono al inicio del […]
May 4, 2022 at 1:26 pm |
Looks like Issac Harris had been married before, any idea of family, wife, wife’s names, children?
November 29, 2023 at 10:06 am |
[…] https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/what-became-of-the-triangle-factory-owners/ […]
December 4, 2023 at 1:43 pm |
[…] https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/what-became-of-the-triangle-factory-owners/ […]