A Three-Dimensional Triangle
Today on Tablet
March 22, 2011
Parenting columnist Marjorie Ingall offers a unique take on memorializing the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, whose 100th anniversary is Friday, today in Tablet Magazine. This self-proclaimed “feminist obsessed with workers’ rights and immigration history” is nonetheless forced to consider the side of the factory owners, in part because her husband’s relative, Max Steuer, was their lawyer, and her daughter, Maxine, is also, well, Max Steuer. “We need to stop reducing a nuanced story to simplistic tropes and two-dimensional villains,” she argues. “Because it means we’re not focused on how to keep Triangle from repeating itself.”
Her column also contains a map showing where each of the 146 victims of the fire, who were mostly young women, lived: Mainly in the modern-day East Village and Lower East Side.
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.
