[4C] Ruins / Immigration Analysis
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"After The Fire" and "View of Ruins" show the rubble and ruins left in the wake of the fire. In 1911 these crowded workshops were almost exclusively the domain of recently arrived and first-generation migrants of Russian Jewish and Italian origin.
The relatively uniform ethnic background of the workers is arguably not primarily attributable to a particular predilection amongst Jewish and Italian immigrants to take up needle-work. Rather it was a combination of timing, opportunity, and economic contingency - the same factors that have consistently led to recent immigrants taking up work in the garment industry across the Western world during the past century. Whether in New York in 1911 or modern San Francisco, Russian Jews or ethnic Chinese, the role of the sweatshop garment worker has historically been taken up by recent immigrants.
They consistently find work in the industry because of the low skill threshold, their desire to rapidly find employment, language barriers, and ties to their ethnic communities. The trade-off is in long hours, low pay, and poor working conditions - as the photo of the sole, useless fire escape makes sadly clear.