November 27 - Death Trap in Newark

On this day in Labor History the year was 1910. 

That was the day when thousands of people came to see the location where a fire had ravaged a sweatshop in Newark, New Jersey. 

The day before, at least twenty-six women perished in the inferno.

The workers of the Alfred & Irving Wolf Muslin Undergarment Company made nightgowns. 

On the morning of the fire there were more than 100 women crowded into the fourth floor workspace.

The fire broke out when a can of gasoline was knocked over in the lamp company located below the sweatshop. 

The floors of the garment shop were wooden and strewn with fabric. 

The fire spread quickly. 

It roared up so fast—even though there was a fire station across the street, the fire crew could not get there in time.

It would become the worst fire in Newark’s history. 

Desperate women tried to escape. 

But the fire safety exits were not adequate. 

Some of the women leapt to their deaths from the fourth story windows. 

The fire became national news.

No one was ever held legally accountable for the conditions that led to the fire. 

Less than a year and half later tragedy would strike again in the garment industry when the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire would claim the lives of 146 workers. 

The events of the Newark fire faded into annals of history.

For years, no memorial marked the location.

Richard Greenwald, a dean at a nearby university, thought that the women who died deserved to be remembered. 

As the 100th anniversary approached he found the graves of twenty-five of the women and organized a memorial ceremony. 

He also helped create a bronze plaque to remember the site.