[4B] Ruins / Union Analysis
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Social documentary and reform photography of the 1890s and 1900s, as pioneered by Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis, had made the overcrowded spaces of the sweatshop and factory a recognizable sight for middle class audiences who had never set foot in them. These photos, "After The Fire" and "View of Ruins" would have presented a stark post-script to those scenes made familiar in trade union and social reform journals and pamphlets.
The third photo, "Twisted Fire Escape", shows the sole existing exterior fire escape, located on level 9. Not only was that sole stairway obviously inadequate for the hundreds of workers in the building, the sole fire escape was not even fully functional - it bent and broke under the weight of the workers, panicked by the smoke and flames. Without any means of escape, the workers burned, suffocated, or leapt. Only the year before, workers at the Triangle Fire had struck in the shirtwaist makers' "Uprising of the 20,000" and demanded better working conditions including the installation of fire escapes, only to be ignored by their employers.