"Fire in the Heart of the City: The Triangle Shirtwaist Tragedy and the Origins of Modern Charity" Book Launch

Talk Highlights:

• Discover why the Triangle Shirtwaist fire is a story we only think we know
• Uncover the histories of Manhattan sites connected to the tragedy, from the United Charities Building near Gramercy, to Washington Square, Cooper Union, the Garment District, and the very building where the fire took place
• Learn about the man behind the modern New York Times and his little known role in the fire
• Meet the overlooked immigrant women workers who warned of their hazardous work conditions, including Lower East Side organizers Rose Schneiderman and Pauline Newman who were forgotten architects of the labor protections we have today
• Explore why the struggle between charity from above and power from below still matters in New York today, and what Triangle can teach us about public memory, immigrant labor, and who gets to define reform after injustice

About this Virtual Talk:

Fire in the Heart of the City is a revelatory new history of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire—and the struggle over labor, charity, and elite power that helped shape modern America.

In American history, few tragedies have been as consequential―and as enduringly misunderstood―as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911. Long remembered as a turning point in the struggle for labor protections, Fire in the Heart of the City shows how the fire also helped transform another cornerstone of modern American life: the rise of modern charity.

Set in early twentieth-century New York, the book tells the extraordinary story of what happened when a catastrophic fire in Greenwich Village threw Adolph Ochs, the ambitious new publisher of the New York Times, and Rose Schneiderman, a defiant young labor organizer, into a momentous struggle over who should organize the city's response: a rising charity sector led by wealthy financiers and civic elites, or the reform-minded unions and activists of Lower Manhattan.

Drawing on newly released archival documents, interviews with the descendants of Times publisher Adolph Ochs and New York labor organizers, previously confidential reports, and long-overlooked private diaries and correspondence, historian and former journalist David Conrad-Pérez offers a striking new account of the disaster and its aftermath. 

A deeply researched and absorbing work of narrative history, Fire in the Heart of the City offers a major reinterpretation of one of the most important urban disasters in American history, revealing how a single catastrophe helped reshape not only the politics of labor, but also the moral and institutional foundations of modern American charity.

About David Conrad-Pérez 

David Conrad-Pérez is a historian and former journalist whose work examines the forces that shape the media, philanthropy, and public life. He serves as research director for the Center for Media & Social Impact at American University. He is a former producer for New York Public Radio’s On the Media and Public Radio International’s The World. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.

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Image Credits:
Left: Washington Square Park the day after the fire. The day after the blaze, grief stricken crowds gathered at Washington Square Park crying out the names of their loved ones, begging for information, and struggling to come to terms with the reality of their worst fears. (Kheel Center)

Center: A Protest March. Shirtwaist makers march to City Hall to protest abuse by police. During peaceful picketing, shirtwaist makers were subject to insults, intimidation and physical assault by hired thugs and police officers who took direction from waist company owners. (credit: Kheel Center)

Right: The Fire. Fire fighters struggle to extinguish the burning Asch Building. Fire-quenching sprinkler systems, though proven effective, were considered too costly by many factory owners and were not installed in the Asch Building. (credit: Kheel Center)