Factory Girls

Source: Philadelphia Stories by Bob Mcnulty

One of the most well-known industrial accidents in the nation remains the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York, where 145 garment workers, mostly immigrant women and girls, were killed. A carelessly discarded cigarette ignited clothing scraps, causing a panic as workers tried to escape the quickly spreading flames and were tragically thwarted by locked exits.

But there was an earlier similar incident involving the fear of a conflagration at a clothing factory in South Philadelphia in 1902, a catastrophe that has been nearly lost to history.

Louise Gizzie circa 1942, with the Milne Building peeking out of the right side of the photo.

It occurred at the Milne Building, which once stood on the north side of Washington Avenue, between 10th and 11th streets. The five-story factory was built in 1896 by Caleb J. Milne, a Philadelphia textile magnate. At the time of the accident, a number of businesses were located in the building, including a garment shop and a large cigar company that employed 1,000 workers, mostly Italian and Russian immigrants, many of them teenagers who did not understand English.

On Aug. 30, 1902, a 16-yeear-old worker from the garment company was waiting by the freight elevator for a bale of twine to be delivered. But as she impatiently leaned into the shaft, she was grazed in the head by the oncoming elevator. The girl began screaming. The foreman yelled "NO FIRE!" But the employees, hearing the word FIRE, began stampeding from their work stations. Soon they were tripping over each other as they attempted to rush down the narrow stairways, causing a human pile-up at the exit. When it was over, nine teenage girls were dead and 60 others were injured.

Many years later, my mother would work at the Milne Building, which was located just across the road from her family home on Clifton Street.

She, too, was a young seamstress, working during the war years on military uniforms. She was mostly a sleeve-setter, slinging heavy Eisenhower jackets and coats across a sewing machine for eight hours a day. It was back-breaking work. And you were paid "by the piece," which meant you had to hustle to earn a decent check each week.

Such are the jobs of immigrants and many first-generation Americans. As the years go on, only the ethnicities change. The low wages and dangerous working conditions? Sadly they always remain the same.

Milne Building History Source: Philadelphia stories by Bob Mcnulty