Constructed Memory and the Paradox of Empathy

Abstract

One of the worst industrial disasters in American history occurred just over one hundred years ago at the factory of Triangle Waist Company (often referred to as the Triangle Shirtwaist Company), located near New York City's Washington Square Park, the hub of the downtown community at the time, on March 25, 1911. Minutes before quitting time, a fire broke out on the eighth of the sweatshop. By the time the fire was extinguished, less than half an hour later, 146 workers--mostly young immigrant women--had perished. Many of them died publicly and in the most horrific manner imaginable--by throwing themselves, in some cases ablaze, out of the upper story windows of the burning building. While numerous photographs document the actions of individuals during the blaze, one of the most widely disseminated of them, Triangle Fire, (1) has long been read as a picture captured during the fire; however, upon closer consideration, Triangle Fire is most likely a staged shot taken after the conflagration was over. (2) Recognition of this image's constructed origin may allow historians to more effectively explore the connotations of the dramatized and aestheticized photograph within its historical and cultural context. If Triangle Fire was indeed posed, we can understand its creation and historical usage as an illustration of the paradox of empathy. Paul Slovic describes this paradox by stating that this mechanism involves the capacity to experience affect, the positive and negative feelings that combine with reasoned analysis to guide our judgments, decisions, and actions. ... [Yet] statistics of ... [disasters], no matter how large the numbers, fail to convey the true meaning of such atrocities. The numbers fail to spark identification and thus fail to motivate action. (3) This explains why the ostensibly candid photographs of the deceased women sprawled on Greene Street after the fire, for example, are unable to evoke transference--thus exemplifying the numbing reaction to the statistics of atrocities Slovic describes. By extension, it further demonstrates that tragedies such as the Triangle fire arc processed through mythmaking--therefore becoming constructed realities to satisfy the human need to distill and encompass experience. In the fashion industry today, the concept of zero-waste design (the financially and ecologically motivated movement to leave not so much as a scrap of fabric on the cutting room floor (4)) stands in stark contrast to the practices of dressmaking one hundred years ago, when a disregard for environmental hazards and a lack of concern about worker safety made such devastating accidents almost inevitable. At the Triangle, scraps of cloth, lace, thread, and paper patterns were strewn in bins at the workers' feet, left on tables, and piled on the wooden floors. The air was filled with lint, and industrial oil was on hand to lubricate the sewing machines. There was an insufficient number of water buckets (inefficient equipment at best), the fire escape was rickety, the fire hoses were rotted through, escape routes (such as windows and doors) were impeded or blocked, thus trapping the workers inside. And to make matters worse, within this environment smoking was common among the men. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As a result of these conditions, at approximately 4:40pm, there was a flash of flames, leaping first among the girls in the southeast corner of the eighth and then suddenly over the entire room. (5) The flames tore through factory floors, burning and asphyxiating the people inside. Most of the dead were thirteen to twenty-six year-old Jewish and Italian immigrant women who toiled on the eighth and ninth floors. For the survivors and descendents of these victims, as well as for all those for whom labor, women's rights, immigrants' rights, and civic management are of concern, the immediacy of the fire is still palpable today. …