[1A] Collection / General Analysis
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The photos presented on this site were taken in the aftermath of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire occurred on March 25, 1911 in New York City. They were first made available online as a collection at the New Deal Network Gallery; the originals are physically archived in the photographic archives of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in New York. Some details about the collection are known, but generally there is a lack of information about the photographs - for example the names of the person(s) who took them, the exact times and dates at which they were taken, and exactly which publications bought and printed them. Also, although I refer to them as a collection, it is unclear whether they were ever intended to be viewed as such or whether they were collated at a later date by a librarian or the photographers themselves. Further research may yield more information in these regards, but in general I have not had the benefit of such details. Frustrating as that is, it does invite a challenge to the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words.
According to the records at the FDR Library, the photos were sourced from Brown Brothers, a New York photography agency established in 1904 that supplied daily news photos to papers such as The New York Times and other publications. Although, as I've mentioned, finding out which particular papers published the photos has been problematic, the fact that they were taken by a news agency for commercial purposes already suggests possible contexts in which these photos can be understood. Foremost it suggests that these photos fall into the news photography genre, rather than urban social documentary and reform photography.
By 1911 there was an established school and style of social documentary photography in urban America, chiefly pioneered by Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine, which was especially geared towards stimulating support for poverty relief, campaigns for better workplace conditions, and the labour union movement. The photos on this site, despite their subject matter and the strength with which the Triangle Fire has become associated with the struggles of the labour movement, do not fit into that genre. Although they could certainly be used as very strong evidence in favour of the argument for safer workplaces, they are not specifically designed to stir up reformist sentiments in the same way as Hines' series on child labourers, or Riis' photos of over-crowded tenement housing. [Hales, ch 4; Trachtenberg, ch 4]
Rather, they seem more representative of the then-recent genre of news photography. By the turn of the twentieth century the new halftone process, which allowed the reproduction of photographs in print matter such as newspapers, became widely available. Photographs began appearing in great numbers in newspapers, journals and books, supplanting engravings and other forms of illustration. The new demand for photographs was met with a rush to supply them - Brown Brothers was one such company meeting that need. The news photography style was to be further developed in the 1920s as technology improved and photographers grew more aware of the possibilities of the medium. Even before 1911, however, certain conventions had come into being as news photographers realised that dramatic, engaging photos were the most sought after. These photos of the Triangle Fire fit that description: they are emotive, simple, accessible photographs, appealing to our sense of humanism, shock, tragedy, and drama. [Hales, p. 270-1.]
How shocking and emotive did these photos seem to their contemporary audiences? Although the widespread use of photographs in the press was still relatively recent in 1911, the constant barrage of images in that decade had already started to blunt reader perceptions. For example, the middle-class had flocked in their droves to Riis' slum photography slideshows in the 1890s; yet by the 1900s the impact of urban social photography had lessened to the extent that the labour movement was already calling for innovation. The same applies to news photography: the first decades of the twentieth century in America was notable for the high incidence of urban strikes, riots, and labour violence and they received a great deal of photographic coverage in the news. Publication of photos of the bodies of bomb victims killed in the streets and of strikes turned into bloody riots was certainly not unheard of. [Hales, p 254-5, 271.]
Although it is difficult to generalise about the impact of the photos in 1911, their impact today is almost certainly lessened. Audiences in today's media-saturated society are assumed to be harder to shock than the generations that preceded them. Certainly these photos saddened me, and some were more graphic than I had expected. Overall, however, they do not take me aback as much as they might have. Almost every person in the Western world today will in their lifetime encounter video and photographic footage of the World Wars, the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Vietnam war, Rwanda, and September 11, to name only a few of the past century's bloodiest turning points. Often that footage is far more explicit and confronting than what is contained in these photographs of the Triangle Fire.