[5D] The Building / Feminist Analysis
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Company signs on the Triangle Building are visible in both "Fire Fighters" ("Clothing Specialists," "Men's Clothing," "Harris Bros." and "Suits" are amongst the more legible) as well as "Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Building", in which "Triangle Waist Company" can just be read on the uppermost sign.
Clothing manufacture was a huge and growing industry at the turn of the century - the shirtwaist industry employed over 230,000 workers in 500 factories in New York State alone. Many of these were women, yet at the turn of the century, they were still not entirely accepted as members of the public sphere. They had to struggle for acceptance not only from the male bureaucracy and state apparatus, but also working class men, who saw them as potential threats and as inferior unionists, and middle class women who were still convinced that the proper place for a woman was in the home.