1 00:00:01,200 --> 00:00:07,080 Speaker 1: What's sending Sophie today's script because the episode it started, Sophie, 2 00:00:07,160 --> 00:00:10,280 Speaker 1: the episode is started. We can't stop it now, it's 3 00:00:10,280 --> 00:00:13,720 Speaker 1: all I We're going, We're this is all in the episode. 4 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:18,360 Speaker 1: Hell yeah, I'm hitting record right now, recorded seconds ago. 5 00:00:18,680 --> 00:00:21,239 Speaker 1: You were the work, You are the war. Chris can 6 00:00:21,239 --> 00:00:23,479 Speaker 1: figure it out, man, this is how it's going. We're doing. 7 00:00:23,480 --> 00:00:31,400 Speaker 1: We're seconds into it. By you got catch the magic. Okay, magic, 8 00:00:31,520 --> 00:00:35,239 Speaker 1: you gotta catch it. Discrepancies happened, Thank you everybody. Um, 9 00:00:35,400 --> 00:00:39,880 Speaker 1: this is behind the bastards. The podcast that is introduced 10 00:00:40,479 --> 00:00:45,680 Speaker 1: like a piece of ship. Um, mother, don't say that. 11 00:00:46,440 --> 00:00:50,840 Speaker 1: Some some could say that introducing it listen so the whole. 12 00:00:50,880 --> 00:00:54,400 Speaker 1: Some could say that the producer don't come from my name. Listen. 13 00:00:55,440 --> 00:01:01,040 Speaker 1: But pieces of ship are produced effortlessly. It's actually quite 14 00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:05,600 Speaker 1: mad produced. They are saying that is true. Though, that 15 00:01:05,720 --> 00:01:08,360 Speaker 1: is true. Your body is magical, Pint. I would like, yeah, 16 00:01:08,560 --> 00:01:10,440 Speaker 1: I wasn't calling you a piece of ship, Sophie. I 17 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:13,399 Speaker 1: was saying, my introduction was done like a piece of ship. 18 00:01:13,480 --> 00:01:19,960 Speaker 1: But well, your your your your, your competence is at 19 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:23,640 Speaker 1: war with my incompetence and generally edges it out by 20 00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:27,479 Speaker 1: a slight margin, but not today. Today in competence wins, 21 00:01:27,520 --> 00:01:30,760 Speaker 1: which is ties into the theme of the episode. This 22 00:01:30,760 --> 00:01:33,280 Speaker 1: is behind the Bastards show about bad people, the worst 23 00:01:33,319 --> 00:01:37,240 Speaker 1: ones in all of history. Um, and some other stuff too. 24 00:01:37,280 --> 00:01:39,400 Speaker 1: Sometimes like today we're not talking well, we are talking 25 00:01:39,400 --> 00:01:41,399 Speaker 1: about some bad people, but we're also talking about a 26 00:01:41,440 --> 00:01:44,679 Speaker 1: bad thing that happened with our guest Jason Petty a 27 00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:51,160 Speaker 1: k A prop what's the words? We network, but we 28 00:01:51,200 --> 00:01:54,320 Speaker 1: are network buddies. You and I are now are now 29 00:01:54,400 --> 00:01:59,560 Speaker 1: co workers colleagues, which I think means, if I understand 30 00:02:00,440 --> 00:02:03,600 Speaker 1: corporate law, we can't be called upon to testify against 31 00:02:03,680 --> 00:02:09,240 Speaker 1: one another. I wouldn't testify on you anyway. But now 32 00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:11,680 Speaker 1: I'm glad that it's in. I'm glad that it's in. 33 00:02:11,880 --> 00:02:17,760 Speaker 1: It's in writing now and broken by Yeah, being on 34 00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:20,240 Speaker 1: the same podcast network you want to talk about, Um, 35 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:22,280 Speaker 1: well it's not your new show, it's your old show. 36 00:02:22,880 --> 00:02:25,519 Speaker 1: But but now it's on our network. Yeah, it's got 37 00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:28,120 Speaker 1: a got a jetpack in it, hood politics with problem 38 00:02:28,120 --> 00:02:31,440 Speaker 1: man Like, Yes, I'm so excited to bring this to 39 00:02:31,480 --> 00:02:34,480 Speaker 1: the team and have y'alls like input into like how 40 00:02:34,480 --> 00:02:37,080 Speaker 1: to make it as as as dope as possible. Yeah, 41 00:02:37,080 --> 00:02:40,120 Speaker 1: it's politics is gangbanging in nice suits. I think so 42 00:02:40,160 --> 00:02:43,680 Speaker 1: many times in the same way that like what this 43 00:02:43,720 --> 00:02:48,040 Speaker 1: pod does, which is like brings everybody to the table 44 00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:51,360 Speaker 1: so that now we all have shared information agreed upon 45 00:02:51,440 --> 00:02:53,960 Speaker 1: about you know, what's happening in the world and how 46 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:56,760 Speaker 1: we got there. I think it's the same with with politics. Man, 47 00:02:56,800 --> 00:02:59,840 Speaker 1: I'm just look, they just speak a different language. They're 48 00:02:59,840 --> 00:03:01,600 Speaker 1: not smartyr than you. So I'm just here to not 49 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:05,120 Speaker 1: give commentary but analysis so that you know what you're 50 00:03:05,160 --> 00:03:08,280 Speaker 1: looking at and that cannot by trick you into thinking 51 00:03:08,320 --> 00:03:11,560 Speaker 1: that this isn't something you don't already know and understands 52 00:03:11,560 --> 00:03:16,760 Speaker 1: that that's how politics. The Joe Biden's from Long Beach episode, 53 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:21,400 Speaker 1: Oh yes, the Joe Biden's from Long Beach episode I 54 00:03:21,600 --> 00:03:24,240 Speaker 1: really have enjoyed in your show is how you explain 55 00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:30,080 Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell, because he really has to be explained in 56 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:34,040 Speaker 1: like ganganging terms to really get how McConnell goes like. 57 00:03:34,160 --> 00:03:37,160 Speaker 1: It didn't make sense. It took me so long to 58 00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:40,280 Speaker 1: put a finger on it. Then I was like, oh, 59 00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:44,520 Speaker 1: you're just a hustler. Did all make sense? Mm hmm, 60 00:03:45,560 --> 00:03:48,360 Speaker 1: Well we're talking about we're actually gonna talk about some 61 00:03:48,400 --> 00:03:51,360 Speaker 1: gang ship. Today, We're going to talk about some um, 62 00:03:51,400 --> 00:03:55,440 Speaker 1: some horrible ship. We're gonna talk about the triangle shirtwaist fire. 63 00:03:55,560 --> 00:03:59,560 Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of this prop Nope? Okay, this 64 00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:05,640 Speaker 1: is uh moments, this is a good one. This is 65 00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:11,040 Speaker 1: a horrible industrial disaster in the United States, so properly 66 00:04:11,320 --> 00:04:14,320 Speaker 1: the idea that human beings would get their clothing almost 67 00:04:14,360 --> 00:04:18,120 Speaker 1: exclusively from stores, uh, and stores that were themselves stocked 68 00:04:18,160 --> 00:04:21,479 Speaker 1: by massive factories that produce clothing at scale. That's pretty new. 69 00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:25,160 Speaker 1: Didn't used to be that way for most of human history, right. Uh, 70 00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:31,119 Speaker 1: your ancient Romans, you know, your your, your, your, your Macedonians, Uh, 71 00:04:31,320 --> 00:04:36,680 Speaker 1: your Carthaginians, your han China, They're not not walking into 72 00:04:36,680 --> 00:04:39,200 Speaker 1: a department store and buying a bunch of like identical 73 00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:42,920 Speaker 1: pairs of shorts. Didn't work that way. No ancient Seers markets, 74 00:04:43,520 --> 00:04:47,719 Speaker 1: No ancient Seers markets. Um. There there is a free 75 00:04:47,760 --> 00:04:51,799 Speaker 1: people buried with the Library of Alexandria. But if that's 76 00:04:51,839 --> 00:04:55,880 Speaker 1: ever uncovered, a plague will will be unleashed upon the world. 77 00:04:55,920 --> 00:05:00,039 Speaker 1: That will lend all of society. Um. But yeah, not not. 78 00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:02,320 Speaker 1: Not a lot of mass produced clothing back in the 79 00:05:02,400 --> 00:05:05,960 Speaker 1: day in fact in the United States and sevente which 80 00:05:05,960 --> 00:05:08,279 Speaker 1: is not all that long ago, right, I've drinking bars 81 00:05:08,279 --> 00:05:11,440 Speaker 1: in Europe that are older than that. History's greatest monster, 82 00:05:11,520 --> 00:05:15,440 Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton's estimated that between two thirds and four fifths 83 00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:18,800 Speaker 1: of all clothing in the new United States was homemade. 84 00:05:19,120 --> 00:05:21,520 Speaker 1: So basically everything's people had on their bodies in the 85 00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:24,560 Speaker 1: early US was something that like a family member, Yeah, 86 00:05:24,600 --> 00:05:27,360 Speaker 1: Mama made it. Yeah, mama made its, sister made or 87 00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:32,000 Speaker 1: whatever grandma. Um. Now, that state of affairs didn't start 88 00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:35,279 Speaker 1: to change until the mid eighteen forties with the development 89 00:05:35,279 --> 00:05:38,640 Speaker 1: of the modern sewing machine. But what really shifted matters 90 00:05:38,640 --> 00:05:40,880 Speaker 1: in the United States, at least was the Civil War. 91 00:05:41,279 --> 00:05:43,400 Speaker 1: Because during the Civil War, right, you got you got 92 00:05:43,400 --> 00:05:46,800 Speaker 1: all these assholes wanted to keep doing a slavery. You've 93 00:05:46,800 --> 00:05:49,320 Speaker 1: got these guys who are generally less assholes want to 94 00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:52,400 Speaker 1: stop them, and they can script About two million men 95 00:05:52,520 --> 00:05:55,120 Speaker 1: the about two million men joined the Union Army over 96 00:05:55,120 --> 00:05:58,000 Speaker 1: the course of that war, and all those guys, Um, 97 00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:01,760 Speaker 1: all those guys need uniforms, right, um, and two million dudes, 98 00:06:01,760 --> 00:06:04,040 Speaker 1: you're not gonna hand sew all that ship, especially since 99 00:06:04,040 --> 00:06:06,280 Speaker 1: half these motherfucker's are dropping dead right out of that. 100 00:06:06,520 --> 00:06:08,880 Speaker 1: You know, how about we just make thirty of them 101 00:06:08,960 --> 00:06:11,719 Speaker 1: and when you die, we just take your pants, all yeah, 102 00:06:11,760 --> 00:06:15,280 Speaker 1: we just take your pants. Take a share. Um yeah. 103 00:06:15,360 --> 00:06:18,839 Speaker 1: So these guys uh need mass produced uniforms, and a 104 00:06:18,839 --> 00:06:21,080 Speaker 1: lot of them are a lot of them are immigrants, right. 105 00:06:21,120 --> 00:06:22,760 Speaker 1: That's one of the big things about the Union side 106 00:06:22,800 --> 00:06:24,880 Speaker 1: a ship. Some of these guys are Irish or German 107 00:06:24,920 --> 00:06:26,520 Speaker 1: because those are like where people are coming to the 108 00:06:26,600 --> 00:06:29,479 Speaker 1: United States from. Um. And so most of these people 109 00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:31,680 Speaker 1: had been dirt poor for most of their lives. They 110 00:06:31,760 --> 00:06:34,440 Speaker 1: had like one or two sets of clothing that they owned, 111 00:06:34,480 --> 00:06:36,840 Speaker 1: and it was stuff that like their family made and maintained. 112 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:39,120 Speaker 1: Suddenly they joined the military and they get these mass 113 00:06:39,160 --> 00:06:44,240 Speaker 1: produced uniforms and standardized sizes. Um. Now, and this is 114 00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:47,120 Speaker 1: probably for most of them, the first mass produced clothing 115 00:06:47,200 --> 00:06:50,520 Speaker 1: on their body. And today you know, you you brag that, like, 116 00:06:50,560 --> 00:06:52,880 Speaker 1: oh this this shirt's handmade. Right, My pants were like 117 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:55,599 Speaker 1: hands sown, and that's a that's a mark of higher 118 00:06:55,680 --> 00:06:58,480 Speaker 1: quality than like a factory made piece of clothing. Not 119 00:06:58,560 --> 00:07:01,200 Speaker 1: necessarily the case back then, right, because your clothing is 120 00:07:01,240 --> 00:07:03,400 Speaker 1: often made by mom or dad or grandma or siss 121 00:07:03,400 --> 00:07:08,720 Speaker 1: and they're not always good at it, you know. Yeah, 122 00:07:09,480 --> 00:07:14,080 Speaker 1: people aren't good at most things. So like, yeah, that's crazy. 123 00:07:14,240 --> 00:07:16,679 Speaker 1: You know what I think about, like just how culture 124 00:07:16,680 --> 00:07:19,840 Speaker 1: has just continues to evolve, like we you know, in 125 00:07:19,880 --> 00:07:22,840 Speaker 1: the fifties, we had to teach America to throw stuff away, 126 00:07:23,400 --> 00:07:26,480 Speaker 1: like you know, and and just the idea of recycling 127 00:07:26,520 --> 00:07:28,680 Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Like I thought about the Milkman 128 00:07:28,760 --> 00:07:32,240 Speaker 1: troupe and I was like, dude, you had glass bottles 129 00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:35,440 Speaker 1: and a dude came to the house and refilled them. 130 00:07:35,480 --> 00:07:43,040 Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, that's some like Silicon Valley like greenery 131 00:07:43,120 --> 00:07:46,040 Speaker 1: fools are bragging about having their own chickens, you know, 132 00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:48,120 Speaker 1: Like that's like I got chickens, I make eggs. And 133 00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:52,800 Speaker 1: I'm like, dog, this this is not a flex do 134 00:07:52,840 --> 00:07:55,400 Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying? Like this is what culture 135 00:07:55,720 --> 00:07:59,360 Speaker 1: was for centuries, you know. So yeah, so hearing this 136 00:07:59,560 --> 00:08:02,000 Speaker 1: is like reminds me of that. Yeah, I actually never 137 00:08:02,040 --> 00:08:04,120 Speaker 1: thought of that, Like my mom made this wetter. Yeah 138 00:08:04,120 --> 00:08:06,800 Speaker 1: I can tell maybe, yeah, I can see that. Um, 139 00:08:07,480 --> 00:08:09,760 Speaker 1: I'm sure some of these clothes was but for a 140 00:08:09,760 --> 00:08:11,640 Speaker 1: lot of these soldiers, not only was this their first 141 00:08:11,640 --> 00:08:14,160 Speaker 1: mass produced clothing, but it was the highest quality clothing 142 00:08:14,200 --> 00:08:16,240 Speaker 1: they'd ever worn, and it was the best fitting clothing 143 00:08:16,240 --> 00:08:19,200 Speaker 1: because it had been like specifically, there were standardized sizes 144 00:08:19,240 --> 00:08:22,080 Speaker 1: that were you know, it was a lot of folks 145 00:08:22,200 --> 00:08:25,320 Speaker 1: kind of left the military after the Civil War with 146 00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:29,680 Speaker 1: a real appreciation for manufactured clothing and a desire to 147 00:08:29,680 --> 00:08:33,560 Speaker 1: to own more of it. Um So in the eighteen seventies, 148 00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:38,000 Speaker 1: the cutter's knife revolutionized the garment industry again. This was 149 00:08:38,040 --> 00:08:40,439 Speaker 1: a mass produced utility knife, a kind of a box 150 00:08:40,480 --> 00:08:43,880 Speaker 1: cutter's type device, razor sharp, and it allowed skilled users 151 00:08:43,880 --> 00:08:45,880 Speaker 1: to cut out pieces that can then be sewn into 152 00:08:45,920 --> 00:08:49,960 Speaker 1: hundreds of identical garments. So we get the sewing machine. 153 00:08:50,040 --> 00:08:51,720 Speaker 1: The Civil War gives a lot of people a taste 154 00:08:51,720 --> 00:08:54,080 Speaker 1: for homemade clothing than in the eighteen seventies. They had 155 00:08:54,080 --> 00:08:56,480 Speaker 1: been a new kind of knife that lets you much 156 00:08:56,480 --> 00:09:00,920 Speaker 1: more quickly mass produce quality garments. By the eighteen eighties, 157 00:09:00,960 --> 00:09:04,400 Speaker 1: all of the necessary technology for a clothes making revolution 158 00:09:04,440 --> 00:09:08,120 Speaker 1: had been invented. The living missing was dirt, cheap, easily 159 00:09:08,160 --> 00:09:11,880 Speaker 1: replaceable labor, which, if you know anything about clothing is 160 00:09:11,880 --> 00:09:17,240 Speaker 1: made today, is a critical part of cheap clothes. Truly, 161 00:09:17,280 --> 00:09:22,000 Speaker 1: nothing new we needed. We've got everything but suffering poor 162 00:09:22,040 --> 00:09:25,480 Speaker 1: immigrants to make sense, we could find people that we 163 00:09:25,520 --> 00:09:27,880 Speaker 1: don't gotta pay, that could do this all day for 164 00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:34,600 Speaker 1: good news. Right around that time, a shipload of new 165 00:09:34,640 --> 00:09:37,679 Speaker 1: immigrants start coming into the United States. Now when we're 166 00:09:37,679 --> 00:09:40,080 Speaker 1: talking about the garment industry, it's about a third of 167 00:09:40,080 --> 00:09:42,520 Speaker 1: these people are Italian. About two thirds of them are 168 00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:46,200 Speaker 1: Jews from Eastern Europe. UM. And the the Italians who 169 00:09:46,200 --> 00:09:48,600 Speaker 1: come in that flood the garment industry are are from 170 00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:51,040 Speaker 1: southern Italy. About one point two million of these people 171 00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:53,800 Speaker 1: immigrant to the United States net in the first decade 172 00:09:53,800 --> 00:09:57,520 Speaker 1: of the nineteen hundreds UM. And then you know the remainder, 173 00:09:57,520 --> 00:09:59,880 Speaker 1: about two million people are Jews from Eastern Europe, and 174 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:04,920 Speaker 1: both groups of refugees would heavily dominate the new garment industry. UM. 175 00:10:05,040 --> 00:10:06,839 Speaker 1: These people were willing to work and able to work 176 00:10:06,880 --> 00:10:09,440 Speaker 1: for very cheap because they were completely destitute. They were 177 00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:13,000 Speaker 1: fleeing disasters, in different kinds of disasters. In the case 178 00:10:13,040 --> 00:10:16,760 Speaker 1: of the Italians, that disaster was a man made ecological 179 00:10:16,840 --> 00:10:20,320 Speaker 1: tragedy that will not sound familiar to anybody listening to 180 00:10:20,360 --> 00:10:23,200 Speaker 1: this podcast and will never happen again anywhere in the world, Like, 181 00:10:23,240 --> 00:10:27,319 Speaker 1: for example, the place where most Americans live. So I'm 182 00:10:27,320 --> 00:10:30,360 Speaker 1: gonna read a quote from a book by journalist Dave 183 00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:33,719 Speaker 1: von Drell quote. The end of feudalism and of the 184 00:10:33,720 --> 00:10:36,360 Speaker 1: papal states in the nineteenth century put millions of acres 185 00:10:36,360 --> 00:10:39,240 Speaker 1: of Italian land in private hands. Nearly every new owner 186 00:10:39,280 --> 00:10:41,760 Speaker 1: made the same decision to cut down the trees, hoping 187 00:10:41,800 --> 00:10:44,280 Speaker 1: to sell the lumber and expand the fields. The result 188 00:10:44,400 --> 00:10:47,360 Speaker 1: was massive soil erosion along the hillsides of once beautiful 189 00:10:47,400 --> 00:10:52,720 Speaker 1: southern provinces like Calabria, Basilicata, Apulia, and Campania. Top soil 190 00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:55,480 Speaker 1: washed into the rivers, ruining the farm economy. When the 191 00:10:55,520 --> 00:10:58,319 Speaker 1: silted rivers flooded in the wet winter months, they created low, 192 00:10:58,440 --> 00:11:01,400 Speaker 1: stagnant pools and swamps, which and turn bread mosquitoes, which 193 00:11:01,400 --> 00:11:04,760 Speaker 1: produced epidemics of malaria. Without trees to hold the top soil, 194 00:11:04,840 --> 00:11:07,680 Speaker 1: what had been a tenuously balanced ecology became a strange 195 00:11:07,679 --> 00:11:11,640 Speaker 1: and deadly combination of tropical disease and desert like aridity. 196 00:11:11,679 --> 00:11:14,360 Speaker 1: Conditions were worse on the island of Sicily, where within 197 00:11:14,440 --> 00:11:16,760 Speaker 1: sight of the Blue Sea, the grass is a lifeless 198 00:11:16,800 --> 00:11:19,520 Speaker 1: brown and the road a powder of white. In many 199 00:11:19,559 --> 00:11:22,240 Speaker 1: regions it is necessary to go long distances to procure 200 00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:25,920 Speaker 1: drinking water. As one early writer on Italian immigration explained, 201 00:11:27,840 --> 00:11:33,440 Speaker 1: it's a dest bowl ship that yeah yeah, um, and 202 00:11:33,440 --> 00:11:35,520 Speaker 1: they're a version of what's coming for California and a 203 00:11:35,600 --> 00:11:39,280 Speaker 1: sizeable chunk of Oregon like this summer. Yeah, it's it's 204 00:11:39,280 --> 00:11:43,280 Speaker 1: it's on its way, guys like this. Yeah yeah. So 205 00:11:43,320 --> 00:11:45,640 Speaker 1: this is why I think we've all watched Five Will 206 00:11:45,640 --> 00:11:49,240 Speaker 1: Goes West, the famed documentary about Italian immigration into the 207 00:11:49,280 --> 00:11:54,120 Speaker 1: United States. This is yeah, there's no cats destroying all 208 00:11:54,120 --> 00:11:56,520 Speaker 1: of the trees and leading the top soil to leach 209 00:11:56,520 --> 00:12:01,960 Speaker 1: into the rivers, creating stagnant death pits. Um. So yeah. Now, 210 00:12:02,040 --> 00:12:05,520 Speaker 1: obviously Italians are significant part of the growing garment industries workplace, 211 00:12:05,600 --> 00:12:08,360 Speaker 1: but they were vastly outnumbered by Russian Jews. Not just 212 00:12:08,720 --> 00:12:11,800 Speaker 1: well Jews from what was Russia, which included modern day 213 00:12:11,920 --> 00:12:15,560 Speaker 1: Ukraine in Poland. Um. Most of these Jewish immigrants came 214 00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:18,080 Speaker 1: from what was called the Pale of Settlement, which was 215 00:12:18,160 --> 00:12:21,520 Speaker 1: within the Russian Empire, the limited swath of territory that 216 00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:24,640 Speaker 1: Jews were allowed to inhabit under the Czar's regime. Remember 217 00:12:24,960 --> 00:12:29,160 Speaker 1: this is a there's there's there's like there's an apartheid 218 00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:32,920 Speaker 1: system for Jewish people in Russia during this time. Um. 219 00:12:33,040 --> 00:12:35,959 Speaker 1: One of the few jobs that Jewish people were allowed 220 00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:39,800 Speaker 1: to do during this period was garment making. And so 221 00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:43,079 Speaker 1: that's part of why they came to dominate the US 222 00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:46,200 Speaker 1: garment industry, is they a lot of them, men and women, 223 00:12:46,280 --> 00:12:48,680 Speaker 1: learned how to sew, learned how to make garments, did 224 00:12:48,760 --> 00:12:51,400 Speaker 1: that for a living, and kind of like small boutique 225 00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:54,000 Speaker 1: senses of the word when they were in Russia, and 226 00:12:54,040 --> 00:12:55,839 Speaker 1: then when they came to the United States, they had 227 00:12:56,040 --> 00:12:58,839 Speaker 1: they had that skill right as the garment industry exploded. 228 00:12:59,679 --> 00:13:03,920 Speaker 1: On Art eighteen eighty one, leftist revolutionaries in Russia killed 229 00:13:03,960 --> 00:13:07,280 Speaker 1: Czar Alexander the Second with a comically large bomb. Now 230 00:13:07,360 --> 00:13:09,319 Speaker 1: we mentioned a couple of times on the show because 231 00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:12,240 Speaker 1: it's important, um, but the Czar had been a reformer, 232 00:13:12,280 --> 00:13:14,480 Speaker 1: He's the guy who freed the serfs, and he'd been 233 00:13:14,520 --> 00:13:17,280 Speaker 1: good to Russia's Jews, although good here is a term 234 00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:21,000 Speaker 1: that means he didn't actively seek their extermination. Despite the 235 00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:23,720 Speaker 1: fact that Russian Jews had probably the least to gain 236 00:13:23,800 --> 00:13:26,960 Speaker 1: from this Csar's death, they were instantly blamed for masterminding 237 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:29,680 Speaker 1: the assassination. This is kind of the story of why 238 00:13:29,800 --> 00:13:32,160 Speaker 1: all of these Jewish people immigrate to the United States. 239 00:13:32,679 --> 00:13:35,920 Speaker 1: More than thirty cities erupted into anti Semitic violence in 240 00:13:35,960 --> 00:13:39,520 Speaker 1: the wake of the Tsar's assassination. Shlomo Lambrosa, writing in 241 00:13:39,640 --> 00:13:42,840 Speaker 1: Modern Judaism magazine, notes that in the wake of the 242 00:13:42,840 --> 00:13:46,160 Speaker 1: Tsar's murder quote, Jews were beaten, killed, and burned out 243 00:13:46,160 --> 00:13:48,480 Speaker 1: of their homes. Each attack was more brutal than the 244 00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:52,560 Speaker 1: preceding mass destruction. Thousands killed, hundreds of thousands wounded, orphaned, 245 00:13:52,559 --> 00:13:57,079 Speaker 1: and rendered homeless. This was the legacy of pogroms. Now. 246 00:13:57,280 --> 00:13:59,959 Speaker 1: These programs were not ordered by anyone at the head 247 00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:03,320 Speaker 1: of the Russian state, but they were extremely popular. Many 248 00:14:03,360 --> 00:14:07,439 Speaker 1: programs were actively sponsored and organized by local Russian police. 249 00:14:07,800 --> 00:14:10,360 Speaker 1: It was not until late summer around August of eighteen 250 00:14:10,440 --> 00:14:12,840 Speaker 1: eighty one that the Czar's troops took action to halt 251 00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:16,440 Speaker 1: the violence, and their intervention did not achieve any lasting peace. 252 00:14:16,760 --> 00:14:19,960 Speaker 1: For the next three years after the Czar's assassination, every 253 00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:23,400 Speaker 1: spring would bring a new wave of programs. Journalist Dave 254 00:14:23,480 --> 00:14:27,160 Speaker 1: von Drell explains quote. The programs flared anew each spring 255 00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:30,040 Speaker 1: at Easter, when local priests reminded their flocks that the 256 00:14:30,120 --> 00:14:32,680 Speaker 1: Jews killed Christ just as they had killed the Tsar, 257 00:14:32,960 --> 00:14:35,880 Speaker 1: and rumors circulated afresh that the matzo of Passover was 258 00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:38,800 Speaker 1: seasoned with the blood of slain Christian children. Along with 259 00:14:38,800 --> 00:14:42,120 Speaker 1: the pagrams came severe restrictions on Jewish liberties. Access to 260 00:14:42,160 --> 00:14:45,720 Speaker 1: higher education and professional jobs was cut off. The Russian heartland, 261 00:14:45,760 --> 00:14:48,880 Speaker 1: including the capital St. Petersburg and the largest city, Moscow, 262 00:14:49,240 --> 00:14:51,840 Speaker 1: was closed to Jews. Some were driven from the cities 263 00:14:51,880 --> 00:14:56,440 Speaker 1: in chains. So God damn man not, it's still harder 264 00:14:56,520 --> 00:14:59,520 Speaker 1: hear you know all that, I know this story, I 265 00:14:59,600 --> 00:15:03,000 Speaker 1: know of billion times, just the whole Russian Revolution. Like 266 00:15:03,120 --> 00:15:07,360 Speaker 1: I don't think you understand the West Western civilization until 267 00:15:07,360 --> 00:15:11,280 Speaker 1: you really get your brain around that. And and I'm 268 00:15:11,320 --> 00:15:13,320 Speaker 1: still it's still hard to hear where you're just like 269 00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:19,680 Speaker 1: what the fund guys like, she's mane And then and 270 00:15:19,720 --> 00:15:26,040 Speaker 1: then so you you you're running this apartheid, you know system, 271 00:15:26,320 --> 00:15:30,280 Speaker 1: this cast system, apartheid and in and in this Jewish 272 00:15:30,280 --> 00:15:33,240 Speaker 1: community mess around, get good at it, and now you 273 00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:35,560 Speaker 1: think they got magical powers because they're good at it. 274 00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:38,880 Speaker 1: And yeah, it just bothers me every time I have 275 00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:41,320 Speaker 1: to hear it. It's not. I mean, it's one of 276 00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:44,360 Speaker 1: those things. Russian history. There's a short list of like 277 00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:48,000 Speaker 1: the darkest regions of the world when you study history, 278 00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:53,240 Speaker 1: right there's particularly Africa during colonialism. Um, there's China in 279 00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:56,040 Speaker 1: like kind of the last two centuries or so during 280 00:15:56,120 --> 00:15:57,880 Speaker 1: like that that they had a civil war that killed 281 00:15:57,880 --> 00:16:00,000 Speaker 1: more people in World War Two. Nobody ever talks about. 282 00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:03,400 Speaker 1: It's like the eighteen hundreds fucking wild. Um, there's obviously 283 00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:07,520 Speaker 1: indigenous American history, but fucking Russian history is up there. 284 00:16:08,520 --> 00:16:14,240 Speaker 1: Good god, it is wild. Some ship goes down in 285 00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:20,480 Speaker 1: Russia major and so this is the late eighteen hundreds 286 00:16:20,480 --> 00:16:22,440 Speaker 1: where this is all that these programs are trying to 287 00:16:22,520 --> 00:16:25,040 Speaker 1: ramp up. The eighteen eighties again, when when all of 288 00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:27,200 Speaker 1: the story, when everything sort of comes into place to 289 00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:30,200 Speaker 1: make the modern garment industry possible, is also when the 290 00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:33,400 Speaker 1: programs launch and things only get worse for Russian Jews. 291 00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:36,160 Speaker 1: In the early nineteen hundreds, bizarre State was in a 292 00:16:36,920 --> 00:16:40,240 Speaker 1: situation we might call the crumbles, which is a framing 293 00:16:40,400 --> 00:16:42,640 Speaker 1: a friend of mine uses to describe what we're what's 294 00:16:42,640 --> 00:16:45,240 Speaker 1: happening in the United States right now. It's the early 295 00:16:45,360 --> 00:16:49,400 Speaker 1: stages of dissolution. Before the collapse of the government, revolutionary 296 00:16:49,440 --> 00:16:52,080 Speaker 1: sentiment was at an all time high. There were constant 297 00:16:52,120 --> 00:16:55,840 Speaker 1: protests against an incompetent and inefficient government, which many Russians 298 00:16:55,920 --> 00:16:58,200 Speaker 1: rightly saw had left them decades behind the rest of 299 00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:01,120 Speaker 1: the world. Zara Nicholas the second was a coward and 300 00:17:01,160 --> 00:17:03,320 Speaker 1: an idiot, and he had no idea how to write 301 00:17:03,320 --> 00:17:05,720 Speaker 1: the ship, but he was cunning enough to blame the 302 00:17:05,760 --> 00:17:09,040 Speaker 1: Jews for all of Russia's problems. His regime launched a 303 00:17:09,080 --> 00:17:12,919 Speaker 1: massive propaganda campaign, which included producing the Protocols of the 304 00:17:12,920 --> 00:17:16,240 Speaker 1: Elders of Zion and a number of anti Semitic newspapers. 305 00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:18,439 Speaker 1: One of the best known was called bess Rabbitts in 306 00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:21,200 Speaker 1: the city of Kashinev. And this is part of the 307 00:17:21,240 --> 00:17:23,639 Speaker 1: province of bess Arabia, which is why it's called miss Rabetts. 308 00:17:23,640 --> 00:17:27,639 Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm pronouncing everything wrong. Sorry, I'm not gonna 309 00:17:27,800 --> 00:17:32,560 Speaker 1: come on like um, if I'm not going to get England, right, 310 00:17:32,600 --> 00:17:37,919 Speaker 1: I'm certainly not getting Russian. Yeah. So bess are Betts 311 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:41,320 Speaker 1: was the only daily newspaper in the entire province, which 312 00:17:41,359 --> 00:17:44,280 Speaker 1: meant that it was by default the only thing most 313 00:17:44,359 --> 00:17:47,040 Speaker 1: Russian Christians had a chance to read every day for 314 00:17:47,119 --> 00:17:50,359 Speaker 1: the news, and it was focused around anti Semitism. In 315 00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:53,040 Speaker 1: nineteen o three, a Christian girl who worked as a 316 00:17:53,040 --> 00:17:55,960 Speaker 1: domestic servant for a Jewish family in the city of 317 00:17:56,040 --> 00:18:00,480 Speaker 1: Kishenev committed suicide. Bess A Rabets lost no time in 318 00:18:00,600 --> 00:18:02,760 Speaker 1: claiming that she had been murdered so her blood could 319 00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:05,240 Speaker 1: be used to make matzo bread. Now, this all happened 320 00:18:05,320 --> 00:18:07,840 Speaker 1: right before Easter Sunday, and it ended in a mob 321 00:18:07,880 --> 00:18:10,960 Speaker 1: of two thousand people rioting through the Jewish section of town. 322 00:18:12,040 --> 00:18:15,600 Speaker 1: People were murdered, some by having nails driven into their skulls. 323 00:18:15,640 --> 00:18:18,200 Speaker 1: A baby, a live baby, was used to break windows 324 00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:21,520 Speaker 1: on Jewish shops as like a yeah, like yeah, I 325 00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:27,399 Speaker 1: mean it's it's fucking bad. Yeah, dumb, that's where that 326 00:18:27,440 --> 00:18:30,800 Speaker 1: whole like, yeah, that's where that whole myth thoughts about 327 00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:36,560 Speaker 1: you know, Jews drinking blood for what the blood libel 328 00:18:36,600 --> 00:18:39,440 Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Yeah, I mean this is an 329 00:18:39,840 --> 00:18:43,760 Speaker 1: if that starts centuries earlier, right, Like that's old as hell, um, 330 00:18:43,840 --> 00:18:47,200 Speaker 1: But this was just I mean this there's God only 331 00:18:47,240 --> 00:18:49,359 Speaker 1: knows how many thousands of people get killed over that 332 00:18:49,440 --> 00:18:51,560 Speaker 1: myth over the course of like that that's like a 333 00:18:51,560 --> 00:18:55,400 Speaker 1: thousand years old, you know. But yeah, this is yet 334 00:18:55,400 --> 00:18:59,439 Speaker 1: another time when it erupted into violence. Goddamn. Kishenev was 335 00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:03,120 Speaker 1: followed by other programs around Russia, and everything kept escalating 336 00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:06,280 Speaker 1: in nineteen o four when Zar Nicholas the second decided 337 00:19:06,320 --> 00:19:09,720 Speaker 1: that going to war with Japan seemed like a good idea. Now, 338 00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:13,080 Speaker 1: if you know any you know about the Russian navy today, 339 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:19,320 Speaker 1: nothing about the navy today, Well, the Russian Navy today 340 00:19:19,400 --> 00:19:23,480 Speaker 1: has exactly one aircraft carrier, the Admiral kuznets Off, which 341 00:19:23,520 --> 00:19:27,160 Speaker 1: has sunk itself a couple of times and runs off 342 00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:31,960 Speaker 1: of what is essentially like unfiltered, unprocessed diesel oil, something 343 00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:34,760 Speaker 1: called mizzoot, which is like the dirty like it keeps 344 00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:37,560 Speaker 1: catching on fire, it keeps killing its sailors. It's like 345 00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:41,400 Speaker 1: always burning. It has to be tugged everywhere it goes. 346 00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:45,440 Speaker 1: It's not a great navy today, is what I'm saying. Yeah, 347 00:19:45,600 --> 00:19:49,600 Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, yeah, they don't really need a 348 00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:52,240 Speaker 1: navy the way that you know other countries due to 349 00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:56,360 Speaker 1: in order to based on agraphy, I blame them based 350 00:19:56,400 --> 00:20:00,040 Speaker 1: on a geography, like there's there's not water for of 351 00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:04,919 Speaker 1: all time. If you know anything about Japan, pretty fucking 352 00:20:04,920 --> 00:20:08,280 Speaker 1: good at navies. This is this is what they do, Yeah, 353 00:20:11,520 --> 00:20:15,560 Speaker 1: especially the early nineteen hundreds. And so the worst navy 354 00:20:15,600 --> 00:20:18,480 Speaker 1: in Europe goes up against the best navy in Asia 355 00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:22,360 Speaker 1: and it it does not go very well for Russia. 356 00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:26,159 Speaker 1: Um and really the only people surprised our racists. But 357 00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:29,440 Speaker 1: obviously this is a huge political disaster. Russia loses a 358 00:20:29,560 --> 00:20:31,679 Speaker 1: huge chunk of their navy, a funckload of men, a 359 00:20:31,720 --> 00:20:35,000 Speaker 1: lot of prestige, and Zar Nicholas needs an excuse for 360 00:20:35,040 --> 00:20:37,520 Speaker 1: the disaster that follows. And of course he blames the 361 00:20:37,600 --> 00:20:43,359 Speaker 1: Jews even absolutely, how about those dudes as those guys, 362 00:20:43,400 --> 00:20:46,600 Speaker 1: those guys, that's why I picked a fight with the 363 00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:48,560 Speaker 1: people who are better at this than us. But it's 364 00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:52,200 Speaker 1: literally guys we've been killing for years that are responsible. Yeah, 365 00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:54,760 Speaker 1: you literally took the knife to a gunfight. This is 366 00:20:54,800 --> 00:20:58,920 Speaker 1: exactly that's where the saying comes. This is what y'all did. Yeah, 367 00:20:59,680 --> 00:21:02,520 Speaker 1: you too a knife to for a gunfight, to a gunfight. 368 00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:04,600 Speaker 1: And then you blamed the group of people you don't 369 00:21:04,640 --> 00:21:11,000 Speaker 1: allow to own knives. You blame the cooks. Yeah. Yeah, 370 00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:14,240 Speaker 1: a huge wave of anti Jewish sentiment lights up in 371 00:21:14,320 --> 00:21:18,239 Speaker 1: Russia again. These paramilitary groups called the Black Hundreds rise up. 372 00:21:18,640 --> 00:21:21,640 Speaker 1: And these guys are like pro monarchist Russian fascist group. Well, 373 00:21:21,920 --> 00:21:23,920 Speaker 1: fascist might be the wrong with anyway. They're they're they're 374 00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:26,480 Speaker 1: a bunch of assholes. They start murdering Jewish people to 375 00:21:26,520 --> 00:21:29,440 Speaker 1: punish them for what they and the Czar's press described 376 00:21:29,560 --> 00:21:33,600 Speaker 1: as conspiring with the enemy. The Black Hundreds openly stated 377 00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:38,240 Speaker 1: that quote the extermination of the Jews was their goal. Now, 378 00:21:38,320 --> 00:21:41,240 Speaker 1: the very worst campaigns of anti Semitic violence broke out 379 00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:44,000 Speaker 1: the next year, in nineteen o five UM, but this 380 00:21:44,040 --> 00:21:46,159 Speaker 1: was still related to the war with Japan. Because the 381 00:21:46,200 --> 00:21:49,760 Speaker 1: defeat in nineteen o four UM leads to mass unrest 382 00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:53,359 Speaker 1: and protests and kind of a revolution, I mean a revolution, 383 00:21:53,800 --> 00:21:55,760 Speaker 1: and in order to kind of clamp down on it, 384 00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:58,800 Speaker 1: the Czar is forced to grant his people a constitution, 385 00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:03,800 Speaker 1: and not like a good constitution broadly speaking, better than 386 00:22:03,840 --> 00:22:06,959 Speaker 1: I mean, they hadn't really had anything. Um. Now, this 387 00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:11,159 Speaker 1: enrages Russian monarchists who want the Czar to be an autocrat, 388 00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:14,120 Speaker 1: and a lot of these guys respond to the Czar 389 00:22:14,280 --> 00:22:17,760 Speaker 1: compromising with revolutionaries by carrying out programs, and in fact, 390 00:22:17,800 --> 00:22:21,600 Speaker 1: in November of nineteen o five, across the Russian Empire 391 00:22:21,960 --> 00:22:26,400 Speaker 1: there are six hundred different programs. That's twenty programs per 392 00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:32,160 Speaker 1: day for the entire month. Yeah. Um, So I'm doing 393 00:22:32,160 --> 00:22:34,120 Speaker 1: this to explain the fact that in like a ten 394 00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:38,159 Speaker 1: year period, two million euro Eastern European Jews moved to 395 00:22:38,160 --> 00:22:45,479 Speaker 1: the United States and this is why. Yeah. Yeah, a 396 00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:49,040 Speaker 1: lot of them are very like very accurately seeing what's 397 00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:51,720 Speaker 1: going to come in the nineteen forties and going, well, ship, 398 00:22:51,840 --> 00:22:53,879 Speaker 1: we gotta get the funk out of here. Yeah. The 399 00:22:55,119 --> 00:22:59,560 Speaker 1: Jewish like historical trauma, like the idea of just and 400 00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:02,639 Speaker 1: there antennas of knowing when like shipping to go bad, 401 00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:07,440 Speaker 1: like trust them like like they know so yeah, then 402 00:23:07,480 --> 00:23:09,919 Speaker 1: being like you know what, I think it's time. All right, 403 00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:12,439 Speaker 1: I'm a head out, you know what I'm saying. I 404 00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:15,480 Speaker 1: think it's time for us to roll. Like, you know, 405 00:23:15,560 --> 00:23:18,960 Speaker 1: there's a pretty there's a story like with with my 406 00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:21,680 Speaker 1: my wife and her siblings, like they when they were 407 00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:23,800 Speaker 1: trying to like you know, we're kids and they were 408 00:23:23,840 --> 00:23:28,320 Speaker 1: trying to like you know, steal some makeup from the 409 00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:32,800 Speaker 1: corner store or whatever. Like their brother was like, hey, 410 00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:35,160 Speaker 1: it's we need to go. It's time to leave now. 411 00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:36,760 Speaker 1: And they were like, no, let's just get one more thing, 412 00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:38,879 Speaker 1: more thing, and of course they both got caught, you know, 413 00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:43,560 Speaker 1: but the brother bounced because he got the antenna of like, yeah, 414 00:23:43,560 --> 00:23:45,120 Speaker 1: it's time, it's time for me to roll. And that's 415 00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:47,720 Speaker 1: it's crazy because it's like, that's actually one thing that's 416 00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:50,639 Speaker 1: important about your hood. Antenna's that when you at a party, 417 00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:52,600 Speaker 1: you should be able to read the room to be like, 418 00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:55,520 Speaker 1: all right, it's probably gonna go down pretty soon. I 419 00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:59,120 Speaker 1: think it's time for me a slide. Yeah. I mean 420 00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:01,440 Speaker 1: there's just I mean, this is a little off topic, 421 00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:03,719 Speaker 1: but there's not a whole lot that's more important in 422 00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:06,880 Speaker 1: life than having a good antenna. For like, I shouldn't 423 00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:09,879 Speaker 1: be here, Yes, yes, time for me to get the 424 00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:11,479 Speaker 1: funk out. I think it's time for me to get 425 00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:13,720 Speaker 1: out here. Yes, it's not gonna make a big deal 426 00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:16,400 Speaker 1: about it, not gonna say anything, but I shouldn't be here, 427 00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:19,080 Speaker 1: not gonna be in this room. I think I'm slide. 428 00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:21,199 Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna slide, bro. I see I let 429 00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:22,520 Speaker 1: you all later. Man. I think it's not for me 430 00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:31,359 Speaker 1: to slide. Ye, people should be prop Yo, drop a 431 00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:33,840 Speaker 1: load on them where they supposed to be, Robert. They're 432 00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:37,639 Speaker 1: supposed to be enjoying the products and services that support 433 00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:42,000 Speaker 1: this podcast. Yes they are, because the products and services 434 00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:44,720 Speaker 1: that support this podcast, and this is our only guarantee, 435 00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:49,360 Speaker 1: have never orchestrated a campaign of programs across the Russian Empire, 436 00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:51,920 Speaker 1: and not I think any of our supporters have done. 437 00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:56,040 Speaker 1: And and they will tell you when it's time to slide, 438 00:24:57,040 --> 00:25:00,919 Speaker 1: they will, they will flood fair enough. Yeah. If I 439 00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:02,760 Speaker 1: know anyone who I trust to tell me when to 440 00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:05,240 Speaker 1: get out of an area, it's the dick Pills guys, 441 00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:17,120 Speaker 1: or maybe Hello Fresh. Yeah, Okay, here's some ads. Ah, 442 00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:20,440 Speaker 1: we are back and um just having the best time 443 00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:26,240 Speaker 1: talking about the economic and environmental collapse of Italy and 444 00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:31,639 Speaker 1: waves of racism in Russia that allowed Americans to have 445 00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:37,280 Speaker 1: cheap shirts in the early nineteen hundreds. Let's go um. So, 446 00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:40,200 Speaker 1: like I said, all this violence in Russia leads a 447 00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:42,600 Speaker 1: lot of Eastern European Jews to decide, like we should 448 00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:45,679 Speaker 1: we should bounce um and yeah, more than two million 449 00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:47,800 Speaker 1: of them pick up their lives and flee to the 450 00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:51,000 Speaker 1: United States in the late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds. Now, 451 00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:55,200 Speaker 1: two of these desperate, hopeful Jewish immigrants were Isaac Harris 452 00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:58,159 Speaker 1: and Max Blanc. Both were born in Russia in the 453 00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:01,080 Speaker 1: late eighteen sixties. They fled their homes in the late 454 00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:03,600 Speaker 1: eighteen eighties when they were young men in their twenties, 455 00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:06,280 Speaker 1: after you know, all of those pagrams convinced them there 456 00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:08,520 Speaker 1: wasn't a whole lot of hope in Russia. By the 457 00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:11,639 Speaker 1: early eighteen nineties, they both made it through Ellis Island 458 00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:14,439 Speaker 1: and settled in New York. Harris had trained as a 459 00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:16,600 Speaker 1: tailor back in the Old Country, so he knew how 460 00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:18,800 Speaker 1: to make garments and he set up a shop in 461 00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:22,560 Speaker 1: the burgeoning garment industry. Max Blanc was an entrepreneur and 462 00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:26,120 Speaker 1: he got to work as a garment contractor. So this 463 00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:28,240 Speaker 1: is how a huge amount of the fabric industry worked 464 00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:31,280 Speaker 1: at the time then is now. Factories had to obey 465 00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:35,080 Speaker 1: more rules with regular employees than they did with contract workers, 466 00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:38,400 Speaker 1: and it also costs money to operate a big factory, 467 00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:42,440 Speaker 1: so a lot of garment makers would hire independent contractors 468 00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,280 Speaker 1: who would themselves hire workers and then pay them out 469 00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:48,600 Speaker 1: of a lump sum they received from the manufacturer. Both 470 00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:51,520 Speaker 1: Blank and Harris got their start in the sweat shop 471 00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:55,920 Speaker 1: years of of the garment industry, and sweatshop as a 472 00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,920 Speaker 1: term we all hear um the way what we call 473 00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:01,240 Speaker 1: a sweatshop to a it's kind of the term for 474 00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:05,080 Speaker 1: like a giant factory with poor labor standards. Right, that's 475 00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:09,119 Speaker 1: not what it originally was. Um Like the factories that 476 00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:12,720 Speaker 1: we would consider today, sweatshops were actually a reaction to 477 00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:16,280 Speaker 1: sweatshops that were significantly less horrible than sweatshops. And to 478 00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:19,280 Speaker 1: explain what the original sweatshop was, I'm going to quote 479 00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:22,360 Speaker 1: from the book Triangle, The Fire that Changed America by 480 00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:26,840 Speaker 1: Dave von Drell. Quote. Today, the word sweatshop describes any 481 00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:29,240 Speaker 1: crowded factory of poorly paid workers. But in the late 482 00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:31,959 Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, the meaning was more specific and more dismal. 483 00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:36,240 Speaker 1: Sweatshops were generally dim and claustrophobic. Tenement rooms were independent 484 00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:40,679 Speaker 1: contractors sweated greenhorns, that is the newest immigrants by working 485 00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:43,680 Speaker 1: them more and more hours for less and less pay. 486 00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,159 Speaker 1: So you have these big garment companies that have like, Okay, 487 00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:48,640 Speaker 1: this is what we want you to make, and we'll 488 00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:50,719 Speaker 1: we'll contract you know, said we have a dress, right 489 00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:52,240 Speaker 1: and there's two or three pieces of the dress that 490 00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:55,440 Speaker 1: are sewn together. You hire two or three different independent 491 00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:59,560 Speaker 1: contractors with their own teams of seamstresses, and they will 492 00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:01,919 Speaker 1: each produce a part and then you'll have it put together, 493 00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:05,520 Speaker 1: you know, by somebody else. And each of these independent 494 00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:09,840 Speaker 1: contractors just packs as many laborers as possible into a tiny, 495 00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:14,119 Speaker 1: low income apartment room. And that's a sweatshop, right, um, 496 00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:16,960 Speaker 1: And you're basically trying to like get these people to 497 00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:18,840 Speaker 1: do as much work as possible for as little money 498 00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,240 Speaker 1: as possible, and when they complain, you replace them. Yeah, 499 00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:26,840 Speaker 1: did y'all call him? Did he call him greenhorns? Yeah? Greenhorns. 500 00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:29,520 Speaker 1: These are immigrants who just got to the country. Okay, 501 00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:34,520 Speaker 1: that's the phrase. That's it. There's no there's no bottom 502 00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:40,680 Speaker 1: two slurs, is there? Yeah? Wait, because it's just I mean, 503 00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:42,640 Speaker 1: I guess I wouldn't didn't think about that. I mean, 504 00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,160 Speaker 1: I guess you could call it a slur. Maybe it's 505 00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:49,040 Speaker 1: not a slur. I don't know. It was meant is 506 00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:53,120 Speaker 1: just like they're new. They don't know how things work there, 507 00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:58,160 Speaker 1: don't like, yeah, they're there and they don't know. They 508 00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:00,280 Speaker 1: don't you know, they don't know enough to add vacate 509 00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:03,120 Speaker 1: for themselves. They don't speak the language, they don't have connections, 510 00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:05,400 Speaker 1: so you can take advantage of them. And when they 511 00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:08,520 Speaker 1: start to realize they're being taken advantage of, if they're 512 00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:11,800 Speaker 1: not worth paying more money, you fire them and you go. Basically, 513 00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:14,120 Speaker 1: there were these like big market areas where you would 514 00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:16,320 Speaker 1: sind people who had just gotten off the boat and 515 00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:18,200 Speaker 1: you would just hire them up and mass throw them 516 00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:20,880 Speaker 1: into sweatshops, work them until they couldn't handle it anymore, 517 00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:24,320 Speaker 1: or until they got sick and died. Because these filthy 518 00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,720 Speaker 1: apartments crammed full of people sewing, disease spreads pretty like 519 00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:31,840 Speaker 1: a shipload of people die from disease in these places. Um. Now, 520 00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:35,360 Speaker 1: sweatshop work was miserable, but it was also inconsistent. Most 521 00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:37,760 Speaker 1: weeks when there was a busy season, workers would be 522 00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:40,520 Speaker 1: on for at least eight eighty hours at the low 523 00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:42,600 Speaker 1: end to more than a hundred hours of labor at 524 00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:45,680 Speaker 1: the high end. Some of these people made as little 525 00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,680 Speaker 1: as three dollars a week if they were new. Good 526 00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:51,520 Speaker 1: wages were kind of more like fifteen dollars a week. Um. 527 00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:54,000 Speaker 1: I think kind of a more common salary was like 528 00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:57,440 Speaker 1: seven to eight something like that. Um. Many of them 529 00:29:57,440 --> 00:30:00,680 Speaker 1: were promised good rates like fifteen dollars week, but found 530 00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:03,000 Speaker 1: out on pay day that the needle and thread they 531 00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,240 Speaker 1: used to make the garments was actually taken out of 532 00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,720 Speaker 1: their paychecks. So obviously these are because these are independent 533 00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:12,440 Speaker 1: contractors being hired by the big company. There's a bunch 534 00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:14,200 Speaker 1: of ways they can funk over the little guy, and 535 00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:18,360 Speaker 1: there's no there's no labor board, there's no way for 536 00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:20,960 Speaker 1: people who aren't rich to get justice. I mean, there's 537 00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:22,600 Speaker 1: not really a lot of ways to do that now 538 00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:26,840 Speaker 1: like back then you had even less options. Um, there's 539 00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:31,760 Speaker 1: nobody looking out for these people. Um. Now the downside, 540 00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,320 Speaker 1: So the upside of the sweatshop system is that it 541 00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:38,120 Speaker 1: allows manufacturers to do their jobs for a lot cheaper. 542 00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:40,520 Speaker 1: You don't have to rent a big factory, you don't 543 00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:43,440 Speaker 1: have to deal with labor problems, um, and you don't 544 00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:45,960 Speaker 1: have to. One of the really big benefits is your 545 00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:48,120 Speaker 1: fact you may have hundreds of workers, but they work 546 00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,640 Speaker 1: in dozens of different sweatshops. None of them know each other. 547 00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:53,880 Speaker 1: How the hell they're going to unionize? You know they can't. 548 00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:56,600 Speaker 1: This is kind of smell like the gig economy. A 549 00:30:56,600 --> 00:31:00,360 Speaker 1: little bit like I'm kind of like a little uber 550 00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:04,320 Speaker 1: like you saying it's like you're you're a texting company 551 00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:07,560 Speaker 1: that don't own no cars. So and I gotta so 552 00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:10,920 Speaker 1: I gotta pay for all to upkeep from my car. Yes, 553 00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:13,520 Speaker 1: and so I'm paying for I'm paying for my gas, 554 00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:17,600 Speaker 1: I'm paying for all. Yeah, not original or new what 555 00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:22,000 Speaker 1: Uber and Lift and their fellow uh soulless monsters do. 556 00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:24,400 Speaker 1: Okay cool? I was like, what is this? Sounds so 557 00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:30,160 Speaker 1: familiar to me? Okay, h m hmmm. Um so yeah, yeah, 558 00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:32,480 Speaker 1: this is kind of a gig economy thing. Now. So 559 00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:34,720 Speaker 1: those are all the advantages of the sweatshop system, but 560 00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:37,680 Speaker 1: it has disadvantages to One of them is that because 561 00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:39,920 Speaker 1: you're splitting it up, you're having all these different teams 562 00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:43,640 Speaker 1: do parts of the whatever garment you're assembling. Say it's addressed, right, 563 00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:46,200 Speaker 1: You have four different teams each doing a part. You 564 00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:48,960 Speaker 1: have to transport all of the different parts they're making 565 00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,640 Speaker 1: to one area and have them put together. Um, it's 566 00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,800 Speaker 1: less efficient, right, which means you make less clothing over 567 00:31:55,880 --> 00:32:00,200 Speaker 1: a longer period of time. Um. And yeah. The other 568 00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:04,800 Speaker 1: issue is that, like it's dangerous, conditions are incredibly cramped, nasty, 569 00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:08,800 Speaker 1: and very flammable. Right, we're talking fabric, which burns pretty 570 00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:11,720 Speaker 1: well if you ever let someone's clothing on fire. Um, 571 00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:15,120 Speaker 1: But we're also talking about a shipload of cotton, like 572 00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:18,080 Speaker 1: process cotton, which is explosive. If you've ever gotten a 573 00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:20,680 Speaker 1: large amount of cotton and lit that ship, that fucking 574 00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:24,720 Speaker 1: that goes off like a bomb, yeah, very fast. And 575 00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:29,719 Speaker 1: there's a bunch of like basically um um um graph 576 00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:31,960 Speaker 1: paper tracing paper that you used to like cut out 577 00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,200 Speaker 1: the things, which is also incredibly flammable. So fire start 578 00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:38,240 Speaker 1: in these places all the time. Um. And to kind 579 00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:41,960 Speaker 1: of give more of a more detail about the conditions 580 00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:44,840 Speaker 1: of these early sweatshops, I want to read a description 581 00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:47,400 Speaker 1: of one in the eighteen nineties by a union leader 582 00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:51,400 Speaker 1: named Bernard Weinstein. Quote. The boss of the shop lived 583 00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:53,800 Speaker 1: there with his entire family. The front room and kitchen 584 00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:56,160 Speaker 1: were used as workrooms. The whole family would sleep in 585 00:32:56,240 --> 00:32:59,280 Speaker 1: one dark bedroom. The sewing machines for the operators were 586 00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:01,680 Speaker 1: near the windows of the front door. The basters would 587 00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:03,520 Speaker 1: sit on stools near the walls at the center of 588 00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:05,840 Speaker 1: the room. Amid the dirt and dust were heaped great 589 00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:09,000 Speaker 1: piles of materials on top of the sofa, several finishers 590 00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:11,360 Speaker 1: would be working well. The older workers would keep the 591 00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:14,560 Speaker 1: irons hot and press the finished garments on special boards. 592 00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:18,520 Speaker 1: So these are dangerous places, and whenever there's a fire 593 00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:21,720 Speaker 1: or something, or whenever you lose workers, you also lose productivity. 594 00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:24,200 Speaker 1: So that's the main issue here is it's inefficient, it's cheap. 595 00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:27,200 Speaker 1: It seems so efficient. Yeah, it seems so. I'm just 596 00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:32,720 Speaker 1: musty and steamy as then the term sweatshop clearly like 597 00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:35,440 Speaker 1: was they were they dying fabric too? So was there 598 00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:39,360 Speaker 1: like a lot of like chemicals around some of these Yeah, yeah, yeah, 599 00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:42,560 Speaker 1: there's a lot of like Again, not long lives in 600 00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:47,760 Speaker 1: the garment industry. Just get turp and turpentine, just acid 601 00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,200 Speaker 1: tone right there in the corner. It's probably fair to 602 00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:54,160 Speaker 1: say that few people in this country today, outside of 603 00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:58,560 Speaker 1: maybe the agricultural industry, work a more dangerous or less 604 00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:01,760 Speaker 1: healthy gig than sweatshop workers in this period. It's a 605 00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:05,400 Speaker 1: bad business. My mother in law in the downtown like 606 00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:08,319 Speaker 1: garment district for before she retired, that's what she did. 607 00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:11,279 Speaker 1: It wasn't a sweat we could say, we could say definitively, 608 00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:14,400 Speaker 1: it wasn't a sweatshop, you know. But she was definitely 609 00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:20,239 Speaker 1: a seamstress in downtown and they paid her pennies. And 610 00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:24,719 Speaker 1: but her ability like now, like her ability to make 611 00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:27,480 Speaker 1: things and to fix them, like I still marvel, Like 612 00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:29,640 Speaker 1: she's kind of a mystery. She still doesn't really speak 613 00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:31,839 Speaker 1: English what she does. She just don't like to, So 614 00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:35,879 Speaker 1: she kind of a mystery to me. But her ability 615 00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:40,960 Speaker 1: to like, yeah, her craft craftsmanship of like being a 616 00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:43,120 Speaker 1: seamstress is still out of this world to me. And 617 00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:45,919 Speaker 1: my my wife still has stories of like I would 618 00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:49,880 Speaker 1: be embarrassed about it. But yeah, my mom's like holes 619 00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:52,480 Speaker 1: in our clothes didn't matter. But she would never like 620 00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:56,440 Speaker 1: let us let them see her work environment because it 621 00:34:56,480 --> 00:35:00,720 Speaker 1: was so awful. Yeah, I mean yeah, and it's certainly 622 00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:05,799 Speaker 1: not a nice job to have now, um, but at 623 00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:11,479 Speaker 1: least definitely less flammable. Yeah, less flammable people understand germ 624 00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:16,680 Speaker 1: theory better. There's upsides. Yeah, So this nightmare industry is 625 00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:19,279 Speaker 1: the one that Blank and Harris start in when they 626 00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:22,600 Speaker 1: moved to the United States. Now, Harris came up started 627 00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:25,400 Speaker 1: working in the US in sweatshops filled with other immigrants, 628 00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:27,840 Speaker 1: and he paid careful attention to the popular fashions of 629 00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:30,360 Speaker 1: the day and to the different methods of mass production. 630 00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:33,040 Speaker 1: Block meanwhile made a small fortune as one of the 631 00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:36,200 Speaker 1: most successful contractors in the city. So Blanc is running 632 00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:41,160 Speaker 1: sweatshops and Harris is like a highly paid like because 633 00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:42,880 Speaker 1: some of these people do make good money, right, the 634 00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:45,319 Speaker 1: ones that we're doing the really difficult, the technical work, 635 00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:48,120 Speaker 1: the ship that not that many people can do. Um 636 00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:50,520 Speaker 1: And he's one of those guys. And the two men 637 00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:53,600 Speaker 1: meet through marriage in the late eighteen nineties. And I'm 638 00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:56,600 Speaker 1: gonna quote from a write up in PBS as American experience. Here, 639 00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:00,000 Speaker 1: Harris and Block were compatible, and they decided to interrupt 640 00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:03,000 Speaker 1: partnership that would capitalize on Block's business sense and Harris's 641 00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:06,840 Speaker 1: industry expertise. In nineteen hundred, they founded the Triangle Waste 642 00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,839 Speaker 1: Company and opened their first shop on Wooster Street. At 643 00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:12,080 Speaker 1: the turn of the century, the shirtwaist was a new 644 00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:15,880 Speaker 1: item styled after men'swear. Shirtwaists were looser and more liberating 645 00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:19,200 Speaker 1: than Victorian style bodices, and they were becoming popular with 646 00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:22,480 Speaker 1: the burgeoning population of female workers in New York City. 647 00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:25,880 Speaker 1: Harris knew the details of garment production and the machinery 648 00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:28,960 Speaker 1: involved in making a cost effective and worthy product. Blanc 649 00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:32,080 Speaker 1: was the salesman, constantly meeting with potential buyers and traveling 650 00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:34,520 Speaker 1: to stores that carried their product. They took advantage of 651 00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:37,960 Speaker 1: new technology, installing mechanical sewing machines which were five times 652 00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:40,360 Speaker 1: faster than those run by a foot pedal. They priced 653 00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:44,640 Speaker 1: their shirtwaist modestly, averaging about three dollars each. And this 654 00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:46,840 Speaker 1: is all occurring at the same time as the women's 655 00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:49,719 Speaker 1: liberation movement is really right. This is the period women 656 00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:51,759 Speaker 1: don't have the right to vote yet, but they're agitating 657 00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:54,120 Speaker 1: for it. Women are starting to join the workplace in 658 00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:57,319 Speaker 1: larger numbers. And the shirtwaist is is not just a 659 00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:01,120 Speaker 1: popular garment that's fashionable. It's a liberatory garment. Right. It's 660 00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:03,319 Speaker 1: like a blouse, it's like a sundress kind of in 661 00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:05,680 Speaker 1: some ways. But it is a lot. If you look 662 00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:08,720 Speaker 1: at the old Victorian fashion, there's like whale bone course, 663 00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:10,680 Speaker 1: that's those massive dresses that you can't walk to the 664 00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:14,160 Speaker 1: doorway in, things that limit a woman's ability to move 665 00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:17,239 Speaker 1: around in the world. A shirtwaist doesn't. It's comfortable, you 666 00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:19,880 Speaker 1: can run in it, you can exert yourself in it, 667 00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:23,160 Speaker 1: um and it looks good. Um, so this is like 668 00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:25,560 Speaker 1: just all kind of happening at the big time. And 669 00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:29,880 Speaker 1: Blanc and Harris capitalized on this explosion in in in 670 00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:33,280 Speaker 1: because the shirtwaist is like a phenomenon in this period 671 00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:37,000 Speaker 1: of time. Yeah, kind of a kind of a justice issue. 672 00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:41,040 Speaker 1: That's crazy that it becomes like a symbol of freedom. 673 00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:43,920 Speaker 1: That's crazy. Okay, Yeah, this is getting complicated. All right. 674 00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:46,520 Speaker 1: I'm wearing something that I can work in, I can 675 00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:49,120 Speaker 1: exert myself, and I can dance in. I can you know, 676 00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:51,479 Speaker 1: live an independent life, not needing to be carried around 677 00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:54,120 Speaker 1: because my clothing stops me from breathing, you know, yo. 678 00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:59,319 Speaker 1: Because whoever's idea was pret is to like to tie 679 00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:05,200 Speaker 1: another like some just umbrellas around your waist to make 680 00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:08,839 Speaker 1: you a trust bigger was just whose idea with this? 681 00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:14,560 Speaker 1: This is ridiculous? Yeah. Um. Now, part of making the 682 00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:18,920 Speaker 1: garment production cost effective was consolidating for for Blank and 683 00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:20,719 Speaker 1: Harris and some other guys who were kind of like 684 00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:24,440 Speaker 1: similar thinkers to them, like big wigs, people who are 685 00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:27,399 Speaker 1: emerging to be major leaders in the garment industry. They 686 00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:30,160 Speaker 1: start to realize the sweatshop isn't the way to go. 687 00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:32,400 Speaker 1: If we're really going to scale this up right. It 688 00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,480 Speaker 1: has some benefits, it makes some things easier on us, 689 00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:38,680 Speaker 1: but we can't make clothing at the same quality and 690 00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:40,839 Speaker 1: at the same scale that we could if we had 691 00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:45,120 Speaker 1: large centralized factories where we're paying for the sewing machines, 692 00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:48,200 Speaker 1: so it's not some contractor buying the cheapest foot pump 693 00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:51,760 Speaker 1: sewing machines with modern electric ones and rows. So they 694 00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:55,080 Speaker 1: they start to get factories. And Harrison Blanc are two 695 00:38:55,080 --> 00:39:00,440 Speaker 1: early guys who get massive garment factories to make these shirtwaists. Um. 696 00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:04,160 Speaker 1: In nineteen o two they start the Triangle Factory out 697 00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:07,560 Speaker 1: of the ash building in Greenwich Village and this is 698 00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:10,480 Speaker 1: the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which is you know what the 699 00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:13,520 Speaker 1: story we're talking about today is like the classic American 700 00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:16,120 Speaker 1: story of like what we would now call a sweatshop 701 00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:17,880 Speaker 1: going up in flames and killing a bunch of people. 702 00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:20,480 Speaker 1: It's important to understand that when this factory is started, 703 00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:24,040 Speaker 1: it is a massive improvement over the original sweatshops and 704 00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:28,080 Speaker 1: is considered an ultra modern facility right because it's it's 705 00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:32,440 Speaker 1: it's cleaner, it's nicer, it's bigger, there's room. Um. It 706 00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:34,520 Speaker 1: had been built in nineteen o one, so the year 707 00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:37,279 Speaker 1: before they open the factory. Unlike tenements, which are often 708 00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:39,160 Speaker 1: made out of just like wood and kind of like 709 00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:41,759 Speaker 1: low quality materials, this building is mostly made out of 710 00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:46,320 Speaker 1: steel and iron. It's advertised as being fireproof by its architects, 711 00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:52,720 Speaker 1: which is thinking, yeah, there is building that can down. Yeah. Yeah, 712 00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:56,720 Speaker 1: I guess if every other building is basically paper mache, 713 00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:58,960 Speaker 1: you're gonna be like, yeah, this one. At least this 714 00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:01,719 Speaker 1: is metal. So I could see the cased the confidence. 715 00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:03,759 Speaker 1: But bro man, can't ever let that come out of 716 00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:08,720 Speaker 1: your mouth. That's teach you. Yeah, you call something uh 717 00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:14,800 Speaker 1: unburned downable and it's gone burned down. That's just how Yeah, 718 00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:18,560 Speaker 1: that's why I always advertise everything I make is very 719 00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:22,200 Speaker 1: flammable and dangerous. This is dangerous. To be careful, I 720 00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:27,680 Speaker 1: do so. Shirtwaist manufacturing involved a lot of again flammable things. 721 00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:30,120 Speaker 1: There's a great deal of thin paper cutouts for tracing. 722 00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:33,640 Speaker 1: There's thousands of pounds because you're making in such volume, 723 00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:36,799 Speaker 1: there's thousands of pounds of dry fabric and cotton um 724 00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:39,640 Speaker 1: that are kind of like tossed aside as you're making 725 00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:42,920 Speaker 1: shirtwaists um. Now, the fact that this factory is not 726 00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:45,480 Speaker 1: made out of wood like tenements, is a huge plus. 727 00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:47,920 Speaker 1: But the ash building was far from safe. It had 728 00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:52,560 Speaker 1: poor ventilation, it was badly lit, It had incredibly narrow stairwells, 729 00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,560 Speaker 1: and it had no functional fire escape. It had a 730 00:40:56,640 --> 00:41:00,359 Speaker 1: fire escape, but the fire escape on the building ended 731 00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:04,120 Speaker 1: directly like ten ft or something above a basement skylight. 732 00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:09,440 Speaker 1: So like we're falling into when they when they build 733 00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:11,600 Speaker 1: this thing, like the city is like, hey, this fire 734 00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:13,680 Speaker 1: escape is an up to code, and the architect is like, 735 00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:18,320 Speaker 1: don't worry, we'll fix it asap, and then nothing happens. Right, Um, 736 00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:20,799 Speaker 1: it looked pretty on this side. And look when you 737 00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,400 Speaker 1: look down from the fire escape, you see that beautiful 738 00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:25,880 Speaker 1: light coming up. I'm telling you, it's amazing. It's an 739 00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:32,279 Speaker 1: aesthetic choice, just like the Titanic's lovely. Yeah. Now, the 740 00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:35,080 Speaker 1: most dangerous thing about the factory may have been that 741 00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:39,200 Speaker 1: it was tall. Harrison Blanc rented out the eighth, ninth, 742 00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:42,759 Speaker 1: and tenth floors. Now, the reason this is dangerous is 743 00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:45,440 Speaker 1: that the New York City Fire Department could Their ladders 744 00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:49,520 Speaker 1: only reached six floors up, so you can't get water 745 00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:51,920 Speaker 1: to the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors and you can't 746 00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:55,160 Speaker 1: evacuate people using fire engines from the eighth, ninth, and 747 00:41:55,160 --> 00:42:01,840 Speaker 1: tenth floors, right, problem playing on the edge, bro, Yeah, Now, 748 00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:04,840 Speaker 1: I just I noted earlier the Triangle Factory was in 749 00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:07,319 Speaker 1: a lot of ways a huge advancement in terms of 750 00:42:07,360 --> 00:42:09,359 Speaker 1: just like quality of life for the people working there. 751 00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:10,880 Speaker 1: And I don't want to pretend like it's not. This 752 00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:12,920 Speaker 1: would have been a significant improvement in a lot of 753 00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:17,480 Speaker 1: people's eyes. But that doesn't mean it didn't have a 754 00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:21,000 Speaker 1: lot of problems outside of being super flammable, and there 755 00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:23,960 Speaker 1: was a lot of the fact that now Harrison Blanc 756 00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:26,480 Speaker 1: and people like them are putting all these workers together 757 00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:29,880 Speaker 1: in factories. The benefit of that is they're more productive. 758 00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:32,839 Speaker 1: The downside of that, for a manager's perspective is, now 759 00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:35,200 Speaker 1: all these guys are talking and they're talking about how 760 00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:37,200 Speaker 1: much they're getting paid, and they're talking about how much 761 00:42:37,239 --> 00:42:39,359 Speaker 1: the boss is fucking them, and they're developing a sense 762 00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:41,760 Speaker 1: of solidarity. And what do you get when that happens. 763 00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:48,600 Speaker 1: You get motherfucking strikes. Oh unions. Now, the striking at 764 00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:51,960 Speaker 1: the Triangle Factory actually predated any kind of garment union 765 00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:55,080 Speaker 1: existing there. Their first strike in nineteen o eight was 766 00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:58,200 Speaker 1: what's called a wildcat strike, which is when workers just 767 00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:01,040 Speaker 1: go on strike without having a union, right, and it's 768 00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:03,440 Speaker 1: actually a big fight because like one of the so 769 00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:05,600 Speaker 1: they we'll talk about that a minute. So there's this 770 00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:08,799 Speaker 1: big wildcat strike in nineteen o eight, and and this 771 00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:12,480 Speaker 1: kind of feeds into a broader trend in the city 772 00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:15,280 Speaker 1: of New York, which is the center of US garment manufacturing, 773 00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:19,480 Speaker 1: and a lot of garment makers are going on strikes, wildcats, strikes. 774 00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:23,240 Speaker 1: They're starting to form unions nineteen o eight, nineteen o nine, UM, 775 00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:25,960 Speaker 1: because they're realizing they're making a small number of people 776 00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:29,600 Speaker 1: a shipload of money and they're getting treated terribly. Um. 777 00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:32,680 Speaker 1: These people had, you know, because they were now inside 778 00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:36,719 Speaker 1: you know, these factories that weren't strike proof. Um, they 779 00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:41,160 Speaker 1: could uh, they could organize like this. UM. And one 780 00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:43,400 Speaker 1: of the problems of this is that like the bigger 781 00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:46,560 Speaker 1: when you have these huge factories, um, that are the 782 00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:51,359 Speaker 1: entire operating profit of these corporations, that actually makes them 783 00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:54,839 Speaker 1: more vulnerable to strikes because they're paying rent on this 784 00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:57,760 Speaker 1: massive space, they're paying for all this electricity, they're paying 785 00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:00,319 Speaker 1: every day even when the workers don't come in so 786 00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,360 Speaker 1: the longer you're able to keep workers on strike, the 787 00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:05,880 Speaker 1: more money you cost the bosses, which provides extra pressure 788 00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:09,000 Speaker 1: to the bosses. Um so the fact that this could 789 00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:11,640 Speaker 1: obviously the bosses consider any kind of strike to be 790 00:44:11,680 --> 00:44:14,600 Speaker 1: like an existential threat, which leads them to embrace a 791 00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:17,960 Speaker 1: bunch of union busting tactics. Now, the most basic tactic 792 00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:20,520 Speaker 1: involved just the layout of the facility itself, and in 793 00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:23,440 Speaker 1: the case of the Triangle factory, Harris had designed the 794 00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:26,600 Speaker 1: layout of the sewing floor specifically to make it hard 795 00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:29,279 Speaker 1: for workers to have conversations. That's the first way you 796 00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:30,840 Speaker 1: try to stop this. Make it difficult for them to 797 00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:34,600 Speaker 1: talk to each other, right, But people find a way 798 00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:36,960 Speaker 1: to talk to each other. It's something people are always 799 00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:39,040 Speaker 1: going to do. This doesn't work for long, and as 800 00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:41,760 Speaker 1: time goes on, the bosses need to develop more advanced 801 00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:44,439 Speaker 1: tactics to bust unions. One of them was what's called 802 00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:48,320 Speaker 1: the inside contractor system. This was an attempt to merge 803 00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:51,239 Speaker 1: the benefits of like the contractor system that the sweatshops 804 00:44:51,280 --> 00:44:54,560 Speaker 1: operated under, with the strength of the factory. Management would 805 00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:57,799 Speaker 1: give would basically rent space on the assembly floor to 806 00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:01,000 Speaker 1: a contractor who they paid a lumps to make clothing, 807 00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:04,359 Speaker 1: and that contractor would hire line workers, which he then 808 00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:06,719 Speaker 1: paid out of the lump sum. So right, it's a 809 00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:09,480 Speaker 1: it's it's it's the same basic idea. If we separate 810 00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:12,880 Speaker 1: these workers from the corporation UM, then they're going to 811 00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:16,280 Speaker 1: be focused on if they're angry on this independent contractor 812 00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,120 Speaker 1: who hired them, and also he's going to side with 813 00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:22,680 Speaker 1: us because he's going to be employing these people. But 814 00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:25,160 Speaker 1: that's actually not how it worked out. As a general rule, 815 00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:29,239 Speaker 1: these inside contractors UM considered themselves to be workers rather 816 00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:31,480 Speaker 1: than management, and they were as liable to go on 817 00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:35,239 Speaker 1: strike as the workers. See, So I still think. I 818 00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:37,920 Speaker 1: still think man like, I try not to be too 819 00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:41,920 Speaker 1: reductive for very vastly Like you don't want to oversimplify 820 00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:44,080 Speaker 1: the complicated, and then at the same time, you don't 821 00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:46,120 Speaker 1: want to overcomplicate the simple, you know, So I know 822 00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:50,279 Speaker 1: both of those things are important. That said, I'm like, 823 00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:56,120 Speaker 1: you're doing everything except for just just pay pay to 824 00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:58,600 Speaker 1: workers and treat them will like if you really want 825 00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:02,120 Speaker 1: to stop, you in like, it's just if you just 826 00:46:02,160 --> 00:46:04,399 Speaker 1: want us to Like, I think about that all the time. 827 00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:06,759 Speaker 1: I don't know if y'all saw the story about Applebee's 828 00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:10,960 Speaker 1: offering free appetizers if you come interview for their job, 829 00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:13,440 Speaker 1: and I'm like, you get a free app with an interview. 830 00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:15,839 Speaker 1: I'm like, or you could just pay more, Like if 831 00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:18,839 Speaker 1: you just paid more, or just have some transparency, even 832 00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:21,279 Speaker 1: if it's as simple as like, look, dude, there's how 833 00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:24,320 Speaker 1: much the building costs. There's how much the electricity costs. 834 00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:26,600 Speaker 1: This is what we can afford. Now, are y'all? You 835 00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:28,120 Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like, we're gonna treat you as 836 00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:30,000 Speaker 1: best as we can. This is what we got. Like 837 00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:33,600 Speaker 1: anybody reasonable would be like, all right, well, let me 838 00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:36,360 Speaker 1: make an educated decision to be like, all right, cool. 839 00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:38,799 Speaker 1: If that's what you can handle, you should you show 840 00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,640 Speaker 1: me that's what you can handle. Okay, work, But you're 841 00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:44,480 Speaker 1: talking about you offer some free apps? Is I can 842 00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:46,040 Speaker 1: get you know what I'm saying, I can get the 843 00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:50,200 Speaker 1: hot wings. I'm like, well, or you could just just 844 00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:52,840 Speaker 1: pay better? And I just so yeah, when I'm like, 845 00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:55,279 Speaker 1: you're coming up with all these schemes and ways to 846 00:46:56,239 --> 00:46:58,920 Speaker 1: yea redesign the whole floor, so y'all don't talk or 847 00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:01,719 Speaker 1: it's like a company all we're going to have a 848 00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:05,000 Speaker 1: holiday party, or we're gonna have pizza today. It's like, 849 00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:07,960 Speaker 1: or you could pay us. Yeah, it's like, you know, 850 00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:12,560 Speaker 1: casual Friday's Like, I'm like, or or or heear me 851 00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:19,799 Speaker 1: out health insurance. That's good. Yeah, you could maybe maybe 852 00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:22,680 Speaker 1: just a dental plan. It's the edit button on Twitter. 853 00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:27,560 Speaker 1: I'm like, you're doing it always works? Yeah, would we 854 00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:30,520 Speaker 1: be doing great with an edit button on Twitter? I'm 855 00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:33,279 Speaker 1: just like, what the hell are these stories you're going 856 00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:36,719 Speaker 1: so so now you're putting all this ship on the thing, 857 00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:38,960 Speaker 1: and I'm like, I feel like we've all just been 858 00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:42,480 Speaker 1: asking for an edit button now. Not that I have 859 00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:45,400 Speaker 1: no horse in the race with this particular that particular example, 860 00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:48,000 Speaker 1: but I could say for a lot of years, that's 861 00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:51,240 Speaker 1: all we've been asking a Twitter. All the other stuff 862 00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:56,319 Speaker 1: you're doing is great, but just I don't know, man, 863 00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:00,800 Speaker 1: seems simple anyway, you know what all system? Yeah, it 864 00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:07,960 Speaker 1: could products time for the services that support this podcast. 865 00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:15,000 Speaker 1: What's happening. I'm just thinking about the way the corporate 866 00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:19,120 Speaker 1: system works and how we're all kind of with this 867 00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:33,000 Speaker 1: engine of death. Yeah, anyway, here's ads. Ah, we're back 868 00:48:33,880 --> 00:48:37,400 Speaker 1: and we're having a good time, just to just not 869 00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:40,560 Speaker 1: thinking about the modern day implications of the things you're 870 00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:47,000 Speaker 1: talking about here, UM, just a good way to do it. UM. 871 00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:50,040 Speaker 1: So the owners we just talked about kind of these 872 00:48:50,080 --> 00:48:52,080 Speaker 1: they have a couple of different strategies they used to 873 00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:55,400 Speaker 1: try to stop workers from unionizing UM, and they're not 874 00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:58,600 Speaker 1: very successful at this because it's really hard to stop 875 00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:01,480 Speaker 1: people from not idea offying with each other more than 876 00:49:01,520 --> 00:49:05,200 Speaker 1: the bosses who are exploiting their excess productivity for profit. 877 00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:08,880 Speaker 1: So the owners of the Triangle company next decided to 878 00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:14,239 Speaker 1: create a fake union, the Triangle Employees Benevolent Association, which 879 00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:16,440 Speaker 1: is actually kind of what happens to cops before police 880 00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:19,120 Speaker 1: unions were a thing, right, That's what Police Benevolent Association 881 00:49:19,160 --> 00:49:23,640 Speaker 1: start as, is like fake unions because cops can't unionize. Obviously, 882 00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:26,120 Speaker 1: they get the ability to unionize, and it's a horrible problem. 883 00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:29,200 Speaker 1: But the Triangle owners try the same thing. They they 884 00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:32,279 Speaker 1: can employee Benevolent Association, and their hope is that they 885 00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:36,000 Speaker 1: can use that to siphon off this energy that's going 886 00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:39,120 Speaker 1: into the union movement UM and kind of push it 887 00:49:39,160 --> 00:49:42,000 Speaker 1: somewhere that can't harm their bottom line. But since the 888 00:49:42,080 --> 00:49:44,840 Speaker 1: union was run by relatives of Blank and Harris, it 889 00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:47,040 Speaker 1: was obvious to the workers what was going on. They're 890 00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:49,759 Speaker 1: never as dumb as the bosses think they are. Ever so, 891 00:49:50,120 --> 00:49:53,799 Speaker 1: Blanc and Harris justified their attempts to stop unionization by 892 00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:56,839 Speaker 1: claiming they had a competitive need to keep prices low. 893 00:49:57,239 --> 00:49:59,359 Speaker 1: The reality was that their business was bringing in more 894 00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:01,640 Speaker 1: than a million dollars a year by nineteen o eight, 895 00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:04,640 Speaker 1: which is the modern equivalent of thirty million dollars. Both 896 00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:08,000 Speaker 1: men were extremely comfortable. They both owned mansions on the 897 00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:11,680 Speaker 1: West Side. Harris had four family servants, Blanc had five. 898 00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:14,879 Speaker 1: They both had chauffeurd cars delivered them to work every day. 899 00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:17,640 Speaker 1: And this is when like just having a car means 900 00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:20,880 Speaker 1: you're doing pretty good. You know, yeah, where you go 901 00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:25,759 Speaker 1: for Sunday drives? Yes, because you got yeah. Yeah. And 902 00:50:25,800 --> 00:50:28,160 Speaker 1: these guys not only have cars, they have cars and 903 00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:32,520 Speaker 1: they have drivers. Um. And the Triangle Family Factory isn't 904 00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:35,960 Speaker 1: their only factory. They have factories in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 905 00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:38,359 Speaker 1: They own a couple of different companies making garments. These 906 00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:41,560 Speaker 1: guys are very well off, so they're not they're not 907 00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:44,920 Speaker 1: doing this ship. It's the same thing with like McDonald's 908 00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:48,600 Speaker 1: today or whatever. They're not clamping down on employee organizing 909 00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:51,000 Speaker 1: the SAMI with McDonald's. They're not clamping down on salaries 910 00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:53,239 Speaker 1: because it's the only way to be profitable. They're doing 911 00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:57,160 Speaker 1: it because they want to have uh fortunes. Now, what 912 00:50:57,200 --> 00:50:59,960 Speaker 1: was happening to the Triangle Factory was emblematic of an 913 00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:03,239 Speaker 1: explosion across the garment industry. A handful of tycoons were 914 00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:06,399 Speaker 1: becoming unfathomably wealthy, where thousands of workers made as little 915 00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:09,040 Speaker 1: as three dollars a week for more than eighty hours 916 00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:11,840 Speaker 1: of painstaking labor. And I'm gonna quote from PBS again, 917 00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:16,359 Speaker 1: Harrison Blocks Factory was competing with over eleven thousand other 918 00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:19,279 Speaker 1: textile manufacturers in New York City. In order to retain 919 00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:21,440 Speaker 1: their high profit level, they had to produce the cheapest 920 00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:24,799 Speaker 1: shirtwaist in the largest quantity. They demanded greater efficiency from 921 00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:27,520 Speaker 1: their production team, which meant working long hours for little pay, 922 00:51:27,600 --> 00:51:30,680 Speaker 1: and the owners kept scrupulous inventory of their supplies. A 923 00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:33,960 Speaker 1: four man monitored the largely female immigrant workforce during the 924 00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:36,400 Speaker 1: day and inspected the women's bags as they left for 925 00:51:36,440 --> 00:51:39,520 Speaker 1: the night. As an additional safeguard against theft, Max Blanc 926 00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:45,120 Speaker 1: ordered the secondary exit door to be locked. So I 927 00:51:45,120 --> 00:51:49,880 Speaker 1: think episode on the Quabolgno supermarket fire. Yes, super flammable 928 00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:54,520 Speaker 1: workspace always has a locked exit. Yeah, that's gonna come 929 00:51:54,520 --> 00:51:57,440 Speaker 1: into play. Yeah. What is that term called a secure 930 00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:01,080 Speaker 1: like a secure pinch? Like I forget what that term is? 931 00:52:01,120 --> 00:52:04,040 Speaker 1: A choke point, a choke point. Yeah, you created a 932 00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:06,800 Speaker 1: choke point because you're worried about these ladies stealing needles 933 00:52:06,800 --> 00:52:11,759 Speaker 1: and thread. All right, got it, But air my life 934 00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:17,680 Speaker 1: and day. Yeah, now everyone's endangered. Yeah, but they're not 935 00:52:17,719 --> 00:52:19,279 Speaker 1: thinking about that. And to be fair, one of the 936 00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:21,160 Speaker 1: things I should note here we're talking about all of 937 00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:24,680 Speaker 1: this unionizing workers are angry, they're agitating for better conditions. 938 00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:28,000 Speaker 1: The unions aren't agitating for better safety conditions. That's not 939 00:52:28,080 --> 00:52:30,640 Speaker 1: really on anyone's mind right now, right the thought has 940 00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:35,880 Speaker 1: not a safety conscious period. Yeah, the thought has Yeah 941 00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:41,600 Speaker 1: I had you, dude, what an important context wrinkle is? 942 00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:48,480 Speaker 1: Like safety is not on anyone's mind. That's crazy, Like 943 00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:50,760 Speaker 1: I forgot about that, Like that ain't even cross their mind. 944 00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:53,279 Speaker 1: I mean there are I'm not gonna say it's not 945 00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:56,040 Speaker 1: on anyone's mind, because there are. There are garment fires 946 00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:58,040 Speaker 1: like the month before the Triangle shirtwaist fire. There's a 947 00:52:58,040 --> 00:53:00,680 Speaker 1: horrible fire that kills like twenty six people. And I'm 948 00:53:00,719 --> 00:53:03,120 Speaker 1: sure there are individuals who are like, we need to 949 00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:05,720 Speaker 1: but but when you're talking about the broader union movement, 950 00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:08,080 Speaker 1: safety is not one of the things they're pushing for 951 00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:11,759 Speaker 1: in a big way. And and this is again, this 952 00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:13,760 Speaker 1: is the point in which a work week is eighty 953 00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:15,920 Speaker 1: to like a hundred and ten hours. So they like 954 00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:19,120 Speaker 1: they're concerned, is like, it's a relief if I die 955 00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:21,200 Speaker 1: on the job because I don't have to do another week, 956 00:53:21,280 --> 00:53:23,320 Speaker 1: you know, like because I gotta be here for another 957 00:53:23,360 --> 00:53:28,920 Speaker 1: seventeen hours. Yeah. Um, yeah, So that that's not really 958 00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:31,480 Speaker 1: the focus of the When we were talking about the 959 00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:35,400 Speaker 1: complaints the workers have, poor safety isn't really one of them. 960 00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:38,279 Speaker 1: I'm guessing if your other option is like, Okay, I 961 00:53:38,320 --> 00:53:40,120 Speaker 1: could either stay here in New York and do this 962 00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:42,200 Speaker 1: eighty hour week in this building, or I could go 963 00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:44,759 Speaker 1: down to Virginia and dig in a coal mine that 964 00:53:44,840 --> 00:53:47,439 Speaker 1: seems a lot more dangerous than this, So I guess 965 00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:53,319 Speaker 1: you're talking relatively. It's like, well, I'm not working with dynamite, dang. Yeah. Well, 966 00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:56,000 Speaker 1: and you're also thinking, again, these are all two thirds 967 00:53:56,040 --> 00:53:58,680 Speaker 1: of these people are refuge Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe 968 00:53:58,680 --> 00:54:01,000 Speaker 1: who are like, yeah, the building slam a double, but 969 00:54:01,120 --> 00:54:04,040 Speaker 1: nobody's actively trying to beat me to death with my 970 00:54:04,080 --> 00:54:10,440 Speaker 1: own baby. Yes, yes, you're not beat yes yeah, yeah, 971 00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:16,400 Speaker 1: yeah yeah. Anyway, yeah. When you're trying to get in 972 00:54:16,440 --> 00:54:19,399 Speaker 1: people's heads in this period, you have to acknowledge even 973 00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:23,600 Speaker 1: the very wealthy and comfortable have a higher acceptance of 974 00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:27,239 Speaker 1: danger threshold than the average person, like the average working 975 00:54:27,239 --> 00:54:29,319 Speaker 1: class person on the street today, because life was just 976 00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:34,799 Speaker 1: more dangerous in a lot of ways. Dangerous. This is 977 00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:39,960 Speaker 1: it was sucked up time. Yeah, dangerous. Yes. So, in 978 00:54:40,040 --> 00:54:42,560 Speaker 1: the fall of nineteen o nine, a new union had 979 00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:45,520 Speaker 1: gotten started among New York garment workers, headed by a 980 00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:49,160 Speaker 1: bold young woman named Clara Lemlick. Over the course of 981 00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:52,000 Speaker 1: the year, Limlick could unionized garment workers from other factories 982 00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:54,799 Speaker 1: large and small, and successfully brought many of them many 983 00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:58,120 Speaker 1: of their employers to the table to increase wages. The 984 00:54:58,160 --> 00:55:00,680 Speaker 1: big thing Limlick and her fellow union this we're fighting 985 00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:03,880 Speaker 1: for was a fifty two hour work week. So that's 986 00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:07,680 Speaker 1: the like again. Eventually, this list feeds into the this 987 00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:10,520 Speaker 1: massive nationwide fight for the forty hour work week at 988 00:55:10,520 --> 00:55:12,200 Speaker 1: the time, they're like, the work week is a d 989 00:55:12,280 --> 00:55:18,440 Speaker 1: plus hours. They're like, fifty two that it's relaxing, being 990 00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:23,040 Speaker 1: a break, let's go. Yeah, more than a standard work 991 00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:26,120 Speaker 1: week for an American today is was like, whoa, this 992 00:55:26,160 --> 00:55:29,200 Speaker 1: will be nice. A lot of Americans work, you know 993 00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:33,200 Speaker 1: that much these days? Yeah, not to minimize that, but 994 00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:35,000 Speaker 1: at the time, the idea that you would only have 995 00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:39,640 Speaker 1: to work fifty two hours was like something worth fighting for. Um. 996 00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:42,040 Speaker 1: And they were also fighting for more regular and fairer 997 00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:44,400 Speaker 1: pay scales, right. They wanted to know exactly what they 998 00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:46,680 Speaker 1: were getting and not have these surprise like, oh, you've 999 00:55:46,680 --> 00:55:48,600 Speaker 1: got to pay for the thread, Like they were fighting 1000 00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:51,799 Speaker 1: for all of this ship um. And yeah, they were 1001 00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:55,400 Speaker 1: fighting for a survivable wage. The minimum wage isn't really 1002 00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:57,239 Speaker 1: a big buzzword at this time, but that's kind of 1003 00:55:57,239 --> 00:56:00,759 Speaker 1: they're fighting for within their industry that kind of now. 1004 00:56:00,840 --> 00:56:03,960 Speaker 1: Blanc and Harris first fought back against this by threatening 1005 00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:07,280 Speaker 1: to fire any employees who joined the union that Limlick 1006 00:56:07,560 --> 00:56:09,759 Speaker 1: had created because and their justification was that it was 1007 00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:13,279 Speaker 1: competing with their fake in house union. They followed through 1008 00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:16,880 Speaker 1: on the promise, shuttering their factory and publicly soliciting new 1009 00:56:16,960 --> 00:56:20,520 Speaker 1: employees in local papers. When the union drive started, the 1010 00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:24,319 Speaker 1: Triangle workers decided to strike in response. This meant that 1011 00:56:24,360 --> 00:56:27,000 Speaker 1: the workers who had been there limlock and they were like, Okay, 1012 00:56:27,080 --> 00:56:29,319 Speaker 1: don't come to work, we'll hire new workers, fuck you. 1013 00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:32,560 Speaker 1: And the workers are like, well, will surround the factory 1014 00:56:32,600 --> 00:56:35,560 Speaker 1: and we won't let these new employees in, will block 1015 00:56:35,640 --> 00:56:38,040 Speaker 1: them off so the scabs can't enter. Like, that's what 1016 00:56:38,120 --> 00:56:40,280 Speaker 1: a strike is in this period, it's not just not working, 1017 00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:43,880 Speaker 1: it's stopping the factory from being able to work. Now, 1018 00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:46,560 Speaker 1: this happened a number of times in like nineteen o 1019 00:56:46,760 --> 00:56:49,880 Speaker 1: nine through nineteen ten, and in a number of cases 1020 00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:51,920 Speaker 1: these kind of attempts to blockade the factory ended with 1021 00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:55,200 Speaker 1: these horrific street battles. And that happened with the Triangle factory. 1022 00:56:55,440 --> 00:56:57,400 Speaker 1: This is happening in other factories to right. This is 1023 00:56:57,400 --> 00:57:00,520 Speaker 1: a broad trend across New York. Um. The Triangle factories 1024 00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:04,040 Speaker 1: particularly large, and so what happens there is particularly significant. Now, 1025 00:57:04,960 --> 00:57:07,920 Speaker 1: you gotta remember almost all of the strikers here are 1026 00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:11,719 Speaker 1: young women. Um and block and Harris countered them. So 1027 00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:14,760 Speaker 1: you've got all these young female strikers blocking the factory 1028 00:57:14,760 --> 00:57:18,120 Speaker 1: to stop scabs from going in, so block and Harris 1029 00:57:18,200 --> 00:57:20,040 Speaker 1: hire a bunch of scabs. But in order to get 1030 00:57:20,080 --> 00:57:22,080 Speaker 1: the scabs in, they need to fight their way through 1031 00:57:22,120 --> 00:57:24,640 Speaker 1: these women blockading the factory. And the way they do 1032 00:57:24,680 --> 00:57:27,960 Speaker 1: that is by hiring a fa lenx of Pimpson prostitutes 1033 00:57:28,320 --> 00:57:30,280 Speaker 1: to act as the tip of the spear and the 1034 00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:39,120 Speaker 1: solid Oh my god, that is heartless, wow, because they're like, 1035 00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:41,720 Speaker 1: you're talking, You're you're talking. If you're talking about a 1036 00:57:41,840 --> 00:57:46,160 Speaker 1: prostitute in nine nine New York, you're talking about a 1037 00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:49,160 Speaker 1: hard lady. She's talking about a woman who carries a 1038 00:57:49,240 --> 00:57:54,840 Speaker 1: couple of knives on her and you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, 1039 00:57:54,960 --> 00:57:57,400 Speaker 1: And that's that's why they hire them. And they are scary, 1040 00:57:57,440 --> 00:57:59,919 Speaker 1: and they beat the ship out of these striking work 1041 00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:03,840 Speaker 1: it's really ugly. And the police show up and basically 1042 00:58:03,880 --> 00:58:07,120 Speaker 1: fight alongside the prostitutes and pimps and arrest a bunch 1043 00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:09,880 Speaker 1: of the striking workers while turning a blind eye because 1044 00:58:09,880 --> 00:58:11,760 Speaker 1: this is we're not gonna get into this a lot. 1045 00:58:12,120 --> 00:58:13,920 Speaker 1: And and Dave von Dreau does a good job in 1046 00:58:13,960 --> 00:58:16,120 Speaker 1: his book Triangle of talking about Tammany Hall, the big 1047 00:58:16,120 --> 00:58:19,439 Speaker 1: corrupt political situation at this point in time. You could argue, 1048 00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:22,400 Speaker 1: it's not all that different. Now. The gangsters, the pimps, 1049 00:58:22,440 --> 00:58:25,000 Speaker 1: the prostitutes, and the cops can all be on the 1050 00:58:25,080 --> 00:58:26,960 Speaker 1: same side a lot of the time because they're all 1051 00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:31,280 Speaker 1: part of this incredibly corrupt criminal government of New York City. 1052 00:58:31,560 --> 00:58:34,280 Speaker 1: That is can can just as easily call up gangsters 1053 00:58:34,320 --> 00:58:37,240 Speaker 1: as it can cops because they're the same thing. You know. Yeah, 1054 00:58:38,640 --> 00:58:44,240 Speaker 1: yeah that this is such a rad time, just wild, 1055 00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:48,720 Speaker 1: wild West, like yeah, yeah, like, yeah, yeah, you just 1056 00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:51,760 Speaker 1: as much. Yeah, you know, Joey two fingers is just 1057 00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:54,520 Speaker 1: as much gonna get a call from the the governor 1058 00:58:55,040 --> 00:58:56,880 Speaker 1: as he is from his mom. You know what I'm 1059 00:58:56,920 --> 00:58:59,080 Speaker 1: saying to be like, Yeah, let's do let's just run 1060 00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:02,160 Speaker 1: down s that's this is crazy, what a what a 1061 00:59:02,280 --> 00:59:07,040 Speaker 1: time to live in. Yeah, yeah, we gotta uh get 1062 00:59:07,040 --> 00:59:09,360 Speaker 1: the squad on the street. We gotta help these prostitutes 1063 00:59:09,400 --> 00:59:13,560 Speaker 1: beat up a bunch of garment workers. That's just the 1064 00:59:13,600 --> 00:59:21,760 Speaker 1: way things working moms, they're all working moms, probably, Yeah, sure, 1065 00:59:22,320 --> 00:59:26,880 Speaker 1: a huge street fight between a bunch of working women. Um. Now, 1066 00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:29,600 Speaker 1: blanch and Harris were not the only factory owners who 1067 00:59:29,680 --> 00:59:33,280 Speaker 1: hired cops or gangsters to attack strikers, but they were 1068 00:59:33,320 --> 00:59:36,360 Speaker 1: among the most brutal and committed. Now during this period, 1069 00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:39,400 Speaker 1: a shipload of smaller manufacturers are willing to negotiate just 1070 00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:41,000 Speaker 1: a few days into the strike. They don't have the 1071 00:59:41,320 --> 00:59:45,560 Speaker 1: kind of financial resources Triangle does. Um. There there they 1072 00:59:45,600 --> 00:59:47,920 Speaker 1: can see that like, okay, they're not really asking, Like 1073 00:59:47,960 --> 00:59:49,960 Speaker 1: it's not going to stop us from being profitable. Let's 1074 00:59:50,000 --> 00:59:51,880 Speaker 1: just give in and we can get back to making 1075 00:59:52,280 --> 00:59:56,160 Speaker 1: you know, clothing and ship. Um. The Triangle owners Blanket 1076 00:59:56,200 --> 00:59:59,480 Speaker 1: Hairs hold their ground. Obviously, they hire police to beat 1077 00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:01,680 Speaker 1: up strikers in a bunch of occasions, but that starts 1078 01:00:01,680 --> 01:00:05,320 Speaker 1: to backfire because again, these laborers are all young women 1079 01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:08,240 Speaker 1: and you have these cops just beating them bloody in 1080 01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:11,680 Speaker 1: the street and arresting them. And that doesn't look good. 1081 01:00:12,120 --> 01:00:14,760 Speaker 1: Like that ship makes the news and people start to 1082 01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:17,920 Speaker 1: get really angry about what's happening, and so they and 1083 01:00:17,960 --> 01:00:20,360 Speaker 1: that makes the NYPD look bad. They have to stop 1084 01:00:20,440 --> 01:00:23,160 Speaker 1: for a while. You know, they never entirely stopped, but 1085 01:00:23,200 --> 01:00:26,120 Speaker 1: like there's this kind of ebb and flow of how 1086 01:00:26,160 --> 01:00:28,400 Speaker 1: brutal can we be before we have to stop because 1087 01:00:28,400 --> 01:00:30,360 Speaker 1: we don't want to like piss people off too much. 1088 01:00:30,920 --> 01:00:33,480 Speaker 1: Um And the sympathy that starts to build for these 1089 01:00:33,560 --> 01:00:36,040 Speaker 1: ladies strikers, because again at this time you also have 1090 01:00:36,080 --> 01:00:38,840 Speaker 1: the Suffragette movement, and the Suffragette movement is not a 1091 01:00:39,560 --> 01:00:42,280 Speaker 1: just a poor working class and in fact it's largely 1092 01:00:42,320 --> 01:00:45,800 Speaker 1: a wealthy woman movement like the upper class ladies, and 1093 01:00:45,960 --> 01:00:48,960 Speaker 1: they get on board behind these poor garment workers and 1094 01:00:49,040 --> 01:00:52,520 Speaker 1: see this as part of this broader fight for women's rights. 1095 01:00:52,760 --> 01:00:54,600 Speaker 1: So all of these and some of these people are 1096 01:00:54,600 --> 01:00:58,080 Speaker 1: like the wife of JP Morgan, like women with some 1097 01:00:58,160 --> 01:01:00,920 Speaker 1: fucking funds behind this. Um. A number of them are 1098 01:01:00,960 --> 01:01:04,760 Speaker 1: really wealthy widows UM. And they start getting together and 1099 01:01:04,880 --> 01:01:07,160 Speaker 1: raising funds UM. And part of what some of the 1100 01:01:07,160 --> 01:01:09,600 Speaker 1: funds are to help these women pay their rent paid 1101 01:01:09,600 --> 01:01:12,000 Speaker 1: by food and stuff because they're not working during the strike. 1102 01:01:12,520 --> 01:01:14,960 Speaker 1: Some of it. A number of these women, some of 1103 01:01:15,000 --> 01:01:16,360 Speaker 1: them are just kind of getting in on it, like 1104 01:01:16,400 --> 01:01:18,120 Speaker 1: you'll you'll hear about like JP Morgan's wife I think 1105 01:01:18,120 --> 01:01:20,400 Speaker 1: gives like a hundred dollars, which is more money back then, 1106 01:01:20,440 --> 01:01:22,720 Speaker 1: but it's clearly just like, oh, I'll donate to this 1107 01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:25,760 Speaker 1: cause there are some There's this one woman in particular 1108 01:01:25,960 --> 01:01:28,760 Speaker 1: who would show up every night after the arrests to 1109 01:01:28,920 --> 01:01:31,840 Speaker 1: bail these women out when they got their bail set. 1110 01:01:32,280 --> 01:01:34,440 Speaker 1: And one night, because so many women got arrested, she 1111 01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:37,360 Speaker 1: runs out of cash and she mortgages her mansion in 1112 01:01:37,480 --> 01:01:40,400 Speaker 1: order to bail these ladies out. So there is some 1113 01:01:40,400 --> 01:01:47,080 Speaker 1: some pretty rad solidarity happen to Yeah, yeah, um, And 1114 01:01:47,280 --> 01:01:51,479 Speaker 1: so Blanc knows like these block and harass. They're not dumb. 1115 01:01:51,520 --> 01:01:53,720 Speaker 1: They know that things are starting to go against them, 1116 01:01:53,760 --> 01:01:55,880 Speaker 1: public opinions going against them at this point, and the 1117 01:01:55,880 --> 01:01:57,880 Speaker 1: only way to get public opinion back on your side 1118 01:01:58,160 --> 01:02:01,120 Speaker 1: is with the media blitz of your own. Now, I 1119 01:02:01,480 --> 01:02:03,680 Speaker 1: just said a lot of newspapers were very sympathetic to 1120 01:02:03,720 --> 01:02:06,600 Speaker 1: the strikers. One that was not was the biggest newspaper 1121 01:02:06,600 --> 01:02:09,280 Speaker 1: in town, the New York Times, which was always on 1122 01:02:09,320 --> 01:02:11,800 Speaker 1: the side of the bosses in this period. And we 1123 01:02:11,840 --> 01:02:18,240 Speaker 1: could argue today, oh, here we go. So Blanc succeeds 1124 01:02:18,240 --> 01:02:20,320 Speaker 1: in getting a New York Times reporter to feature him 1125 01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:22,920 Speaker 1: in a story that shows his factory full of workers 1126 01:02:22,920 --> 01:02:25,280 Speaker 1: despite the strike. And these guys, no, see, they're happy, 1127 01:02:25,360 --> 01:02:28,800 Speaker 1: it's just some bad And in the article this won't 1128 01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:31,560 Speaker 1: sound familiar to anybody, but Blank through the New York 1129 01:02:31,600 --> 01:02:34,880 Speaker 1: Time basically says, look at how happy all of my 1130 01:02:35,000 --> 01:02:39,040 Speaker 1: workers are the only reason these poor deluded women are 1131 01:02:39,080 --> 01:02:49,520 Speaker 1: striking is because of outside agitators who have there are Yeah, baby, 1132 01:02:49,720 --> 01:02:56,120 Speaker 1: he did both. There a few bad apples. And man, 1133 01:02:56,320 --> 01:03:01,600 Speaker 1: the playbook, the playbook is undefeated. We put it from 1134 01:03:01,600 --> 01:03:07,160 Speaker 1: the same playbook in ninety oh one. Yeah, it's it's 1135 01:03:07,360 --> 01:03:11,040 Speaker 1: very funny. Um yea and yeah. And so they have 1136 01:03:11,120 --> 01:03:12,760 Speaker 1: to put out this New York Times article. They do 1137 01:03:12,800 --> 01:03:15,120 Speaker 1: this press blitz, and they also start to try to 1138 01:03:15,280 --> 01:03:18,560 Speaker 1: organize with their fellow business owners. Um. And right around 1139 01:03:18,600 --> 01:03:20,440 Speaker 1: this period of time, they write a letter to a 1140 01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:24,360 Speaker 1: group of their fellow factory owners. Gentlemen, you are aware 1141 01:03:24,400 --> 01:03:26,360 Speaker 1: of the agitation. Wait, I'm actually gonna use my old 1142 01:03:26,360 --> 01:03:29,720 Speaker 1: Tommy boys. Gentlemen, you are aware of the agitation that 1143 01:03:29,800 --> 01:03:32,360 Speaker 1: is now going on in our shops. Are satisfied workers 1144 01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:35,560 Speaker 1: are being molested and interfered with. The so called union 1145 01:03:35,640 --> 01:03:38,480 Speaker 1: is now preparing to call a general strike in order 1146 01:03:38,520 --> 01:03:41,720 Speaker 1: to prevent this irresponsible union from gaining the upper hand. 1147 01:03:42,000 --> 01:03:44,120 Speaker 1: Let us know as soon as you possibly can, if 1148 01:03:44,160 --> 01:03:47,000 Speaker 1: you would be willing to form and join an employer's 1149 01:03:47,080 --> 01:03:52,439 Speaker 1: mutual protection association. So they make a union for the bosses. Yeah, 1150 01:03:52,440 --> 01:03:55,640 Speaker 1: but in order to fight the union of the workers. 1151 01:03:56,200 --> 01:04:04,000 Speaker 1: Got a union too, looks like unizing works. Now this 1152 01:04:04,040 --> 01:04:06,920 Speaker 1: still exists today, we call it the federal government. But 1153 01:04:07,480 --> 01:04:13,480 Speaker 1: that's a story for another day. Yo, you slid down in. 1154 01:04:13,720 --> 01:04:20,760 Speaker 1: That's the smooth yea down here, good man. So Blanc 1155 01:04:20,840 --> 01:04:24,000 Speaker 1: and Harris, Yeah, respond to this unionization effort by basically 1156 01:04:24,000 --> 01:04:26,360 Speaker 1: making their own union for rich assholes. And part of 1157 01:04:26,400 --> 01:04:29,040 Speaker 1: their rage at their workers efforts to unionize comes from 1158 01:04:29,040 --> 01:04:31,400 Speaker 1: the fact that the Triangle Shirt waste factory was, as 1159 01:04:31,400 --> 01:04:36,000 Speaker 1: I've said, by most standards, a very progressive and safe factory. 1160 01:04:36,120 --> 01:04:39,920 Speaker 1: It's considered that in its time, um Blanc and Harris also, 1161 01:04:40,280 --> 01:04:43,120 Speaker 1: these guys were not born rich. They again, these are 1162 01:04:43,200 --> 01:04:46,680 Speaker 1: dirt poor Jewish immigrants who come to the US fucking desperate. 1163 01:04:46,720 --> 01:04:49,240 Speaker 1: They know what it is to be poor, and they 1164 01:04:49,280 --> 01:04:51,760 Speaker 1: don't have any kind of class solidarity obviously, but they 1165 01:04:51,840 --> 01:04:55,480 Speaker 1: consider it a personal attack that their employees unionize against them, 1166 01:04:55,600 --> 01:04:58,280 Speaker 1: right that Like, so they don't have any solidarity for 1167 01:04:58,360 --> 01:05:01,960 Speaker 1: their workers as former workers, but they're offended that they're 1168 01:05:02,000 --> 01:05:05,200 Speaker 1: workers don't treat them like fellow workers and treating them 1169 01:05:05,240 --> 01:05:08,520 Speaker 1: like hey, I'm come on, come on, I'm on the guys, 1170 01:05:09,040 --> 01:05:11,040 Speaker 1: I'm one of the girls. It's got a car you're 1171 01:05:11,120 --> 01:05:15,560 Speaker 1: dying of Typhus were the same. Come on, man, ask 1172 01:05:15,640 --> 01:05:18,320 Speaker 1: more to you, gotta work hard, suck up man, I'm 1173 01:05:18,320 --> 01:05:25,920 Speaker 1: on yeah. Nah, I'm good, bro. So that's what what 1174 01:05:25,920 --> 01:05:29,160 Speaker 1: what do we miss? I'm laughing problem, I'm good, bro, 1175 01:05:30,520 --> 01:05:34,240 Speaker 1: I'm good. Yeah. It's like because that's that's the way 1176 01:05:34,280 --> 01:05:37,160 Speaker 1: I would feel about because it's funny to me that 1177 01:05:37,320 --> 01:05:39,720 Speaker 1: like it messed with they, It messed with the identity 1178 01:05:39,720 --> 01:05:42,960 Speaker 1: and a pride when it was like wait, wait, so 1179 01:05:43,080 --> 01:05:47,480 Speaker 1: we're we're not We're not one of the We're not 1180 01:05:47,520 --> 01:05:50,440 Speaker 1: one of the squad. No more, you're not happy with 1181 01:05:50,520 --> 01:05:53,000 Speaker 1: our you're not happy with our building? Like nah, man, 1182 01:05:54,040 --> 01:06:01,440 Speaker 1: no you're not. That's crazy. Yeah nah good yep. So, 1183 01:06:01,840 --> 01:06:05,320 Speaker 1: in addition to hiring cops and gang members to beat strikers, 1184 01:06:06,040 --> 01:06:09,200 Speaker 1: Blanc and Harris who the term they're known by the 1185 01:06:09,240 --> 01:06:11,400 Speaker 1: name they're known by this period is the shirtwaist Kings, 1186 01:06:11,400 --> 01:06:14,360 Speaker 1: because they're like the biggest shirtwaist dudes in the city. 1187 01:06:14,520 --> 01:06:17,080 Speaker 1: This period, they also hit upon what's kind of a 1188 01:06:17,080 --> 01:06:21,400 Speaker 1: brilliant plan. They start bribing Italian priests from conservative Catholic 1189 01:06:21,440 --> 01:06:25,000 Speaker 1: parishes to give lectures to their Italian factory workers on 1190 01:06:25,080 --> 01:06:27,760 Speaker 1: company time, explaining that laborers have a duty to be 1191 01:06:27,800 --> 01:06:30,960 Speaker 1: obedient to their bosses because again, the whole labor force 1192 01:06:31,080 --> 01:06:33,720 Speaker 1: is basically Jewish immigrants and Italian immigrants, so a big 1193 01:06:33,760 --> 01:06:36,280 Speaker 1: part of their ideas. It's the colonialism thing, right, It's 1194 01:06:36,320 --> 01:06:38,960 Speaker 1: what Britain did in Africa. You got you have this 1195 01:06:39,040 --> 01:06:42,040 Speaker 1: population united against you. You've got to split them along 1196 01:06:42,040 --> 01:06:44,880 Speaker 1: ethnic lines or religious lines, and they try to do both. 1197 01:06:45,280 --> 01:06:48,000 Speaker 1: It doesn't work. In this period. The Italians and the 1198 01:06:48,080 --> 01:06:51,800 Speaker 1: Jews stick together to funk the bosses, um, which is 1199 01:06:51,840 --> 01:06:56,600 Speaker 1: a nice tale um. So yeah, the Triangle bosses also 1200 01:06:56,640 --> 01:06:59,200 Speaker 1: tried to bribe the remaining employees, the ones who refused 1201 01:06:59,240 --> 01:07:01,400 Speaker 1: to strike with good times. They would start holding dance 1202 01:07:01,440 --> 01:07:03,720 Speaker 1: parties during lunch and give out food and prizes. So 1203 01:07:03,760 --> 01:07:06,360 Speaker 1: they do also try to treat the workers who don't 1204 01:07:06,400 --> 01:07:09,040 Speaker 1: strike better in order to like stop them from striking. 1205 01:07:09,440 --> 01:07:11,720 Speaker 1: But that's kind of a minimum aspect of what they're 1206 01:07:11,720 --> 01:07:16,240 Speaker 1: actually trying this period. So obviously none of this stops 1207 01:07:16,280 --> 01:07:18,960 Speaker 1: the strike. The violence in the streets continues, uh, and 1208 01:07:19,760 --> 01:07:21,720 Speaker 1: peace would kind of you know, you would have this 1209 01:07:21,720 --> 01:07:24,360 Speaker 1: this period where peace would return after a bad skirmish, 1210 01:07:24,400 --> 01:07:26,400 Speaker 1: and then a few days later strikebreakers would be sent 1211 01:07:26,440 --> 01:07:31,360 Speaker 1: into crackheads and the cycle would start again. Um. Yeah. 1212 01:07:31,480 --> 01:07:34,400 Speaker 1: At one point, the judges get angry that the rich 1213 01:07:34,520 --> 01:07:37,360 Speaker 1: ladies who had banded together to back this union, um, 1214 01:07:37,440 --> 01:07:40,680 Speaker 1: we're bailing everyone out. So they start sending arrested strikers 1215 01:07:40,680 --> 01:07:42,880 Speaker 1: to do weeks of hard labor in a penal colony. 1216 01:07:43,120 --> 01:07:45,760 Speaker 1: And the strikers start like making badges and awards to 1217 01:07:45,800 --> 01:07:48,000 Speaker 1: give women who do time and the penal colony for 1218 01:07:48,120 --> 01:07:49,920 Speaker 1: the movement and stuff. It's kind of a way to 1219 01:07:50,240 --> 01:07:55,280 Speaker 1: you gotta reward people who go through this ship. Let go. Yeah, 1220 01:07:55,880 --> 01:07:59,400 Speaker 1: that's kind don't do it. Yeah, now it's time ward. 1221 01:07:59,720 --> 01:08:02,840 Speaker 1: Where on, Blanc and Harris decided, like they do get 1222 01:08:02,880 --> 01:08:04,960 Speaker 1: beaten down by this to a degree, and they decided 1223 01:08:04,960 --> 01:08:06,960 Speaker 1: they're willing to come to the table and grant their 1224 01:08:06,960 --> 01:08:09,080 Speaker 1: workers most of their demands. So they're willing to give 1225 01:08:09,080 --> 01:08:11,760 Speaker 1: into the fifty two hour work week, they're willing to 1226 01:08:11,200 --> 01:08:14,080 Speaker 1: work to raise wages. The only thing they're not willing 1227 01:08:14,120 --> 01:08:16,559 Speaker 1: to do is given to the union's key demand. So 1228 01:08:16,600 --> 01:08:19,000 Speaker 1: this the w the w t U L, which is 1229 01:08:19,040 --> 01:08:21,680 Speaker 1: the union these these women form all across New York 1230 01:08:21,760 --> 01:08:24,280 Speaker 1: City for garment workers. One of the things they're trying 1231 01:08:24,320 --> 01:08:26,439 Speaker 1: to get is an agreement from all of these shops 1232 01:08:26,479 --> 01:08:29,200 Speaker 1: to be union only shops. In other words, they won't 1233 01:08:29,280 --> 01:08:31,240 Speaker 1: hire anyone who isn't a part of the union, which 1234 01:08:31,240 --> 01:08:35,080 Speaker 1: obviously makes the union more powerful. And that's the one thing. Eventually, 1235 01:08:35,120 --> 01:08:36,920 Speaker 1: even Blanc and Harris are willing to come to the 1236 01:08:36,920 --> 01:08:41,080 Speaker 1: table on everything else. Um. And because Blanc and Harris 1237 01:08:41,080 --> 01:08:43,320 Speaker 1: have a union of factory owners, they're able to get 1238 01:08:43,360 --> 01:08:46,160 Speaker 1: a lot of other big factories to resist this push 1239 01:08:46,200 --> 01:08:47,880 Speaker 1: to make it a union only shop what's called a 1240 01:08:47,880 --> 01:08:51,840 Speaker 1: closed shop. Now. Meanwhile, the fact that all of these 1241 01:08:51,840 --> 01:08:54,360 Speaker 1: owners had been willing to grant the other demands, this 1242 01:08:54,400 --> 01:08:57,360 Speaker 1: starts to upset the wealthy liberal ladies who had adopted 1243 01:08:57,400 --> 01:08:59,960 Speaker 1: the garment workers strike as a cause, And they're like, well, 1244 01:09:00,000 --> 01:09:01,880 Speaker 1: I do you need it to be a union only shop? Right? 1245 01:09:02,120 --> 01:09:04,479 Speaker 1: Haven't you gotten enough? Isn't it time for this to 1246 01:09:04,520 --> 01:09:08,360 Speaker 1: be over? Um? So that's a factor to it, And 1247 01:09:08,400 --> 01:09:10,599 Speaker 1: this this is kind of the start of the union 1248 01:09:10,600 --> 01:09:12,559 Speaker 1: movement fracturing. And there's more to it than just the 1249 01:09:12,640 --> 01:09:14,920 Speaker 1: rich ladies being like, haven't you got it gotten enough? 1250 01:09:15,200 --> 01:09:18,599 Speaker 1: There's also a lot of anger from the extreme leftist 1251 01:09:18,680 --> 01:09:21,760 Speaker 1: organizers in the movement because they they're really unhappy as 1252 01:09:21,800 --> 01:09:24,120 Speaker 1: soon as these rich kind of liberal ladies show up 1253 01:09:24,120 --> 01:09:27,240 Speaker 1: and start throwing their money around um, and they're like, well, hey, 1254 01:09:27,280 --> 01:09:29,400 Speaker 1: this is supposed to be a class movement against the rich, 1255 01:09:29,680 --> 01:09:32,719 Speaker 1: Like why are we celebrating which women who, no matter 1256 01:09:32,720 --> 01:09:34,960 Speaker 1: how much they donate, are still never going to suffer 1257 01:09:35,000 --> 01:09:37,080 Speaker 1: as a result of it. And so they get angry 1258 01:09:37,080 --> 01:09:39,000 Speaker 1: at the rich ladies who do play a key role 1259 01:09:39,040 --> 01:09:41,920 Speaker 1: in this union being able to survive. The rich ladies 1260 01:09:41,920 --> 01:09:43,920 Speaker 1: are like, you guys are asking for too much. Why 1261 01:09:44,000 --> 01:09:46,200 Speaker 1: do you need this? You know, because they don't actually 1262 01:09:46,200 --> 01:09:48,720 Speaker 1: know what it's like to be that desperate um. And 1263 01:09:49,240 --> 01:09:52,400 Speaker 1: in addition to all of that, there's frustration among more 1264 01:09:52,439 --> 01:09:55,920 Speaker 1: moderate union organizers because a lot of union organizers in 1265 01:09:55,960 --> 01:09:58,680 Speaker 1: this period are not socialists. There's a lot of socialists 1266 01:09:58,680 --> 01:10:01,040 Speaker 1: in the movement, but like Samue Gompers, who's the head 1267 01:10:01,040 --> 01:10:03,240 Speaker 1: of the a f l UM the American FED, he's 1268 01:10:03,240 --> 01:10:06,120 Speaker 1: the biggest union head, is anti socialist, but he's a 1269 01:10:06,240 --> 01:10:09,680 Speaker 1: union man. UM. So there's there's a lot there and 1270 01:10:09,720 --> 01:10:13,360 Speaker 1: the the union organizers who aren't socialists are angry because 1271 01:10:13,400 --> 01:10:15,439 Speaker 1: a lot of the more radical socialists, who are some 1272 01:10:15,479 --> 01:10:18,479 Speaker 1: of the best and most dedicated organizers, want to make 1273 01:10:18,520 --> 01:10:20,879 Speaker 1: this strike more than just a strike for better conditions 1274 01:10:20,880 --> 01:10:22,760 Speaker 1: for garment workers. They're kind of trying to push for 1275 01:10:22,800 --> 01:10:26,280 Speaker 1: a broader feminist revolt. They're adding demands for suffrage to 1276 01:10:26,280 --> 01:10:28,559 Speaker 1: the list of demands the garment workers are making, and 1277 01:10:28,600 --> 01:10:30,920 Speaker 1: this frustrates the more moderate strikers who are like, well, 1278 01:10:30,960 --> 01:10:33,280 Speaker 1: we just want a more equitable deal. We're not really 1279 01:10:33,320 --> 01:10:37,760 Speaker 1: fighting for women's liberation. So the strike movement, it does 1280 01:10:37,800 --> 01:10:40,479 Speaker 1: achieve most of its goals. They get the fifty two 1281 01:10:40,479 --> 01:10:42,719 Speaker 1: hour workweek, they get wages raised, they get a couple 1282 01:10:42,720 --> 01:10:45,679 Speaker 1: of other things, but it also fractures before they get 1283 01:10:45,760 --> 01:10:48,320 Speaker 1: everything that they want, which is you know, usually how 1284 01:10:48,360 --> 01:10:51,320 Speaker 1: things go right. Yeah, I mean that's what failure. Yeah, yeah, 1285 01:10:51,360 --> 01:10:54,080 Speaker 1: that's what a negotiation is. Like you get you know, 1286 01:10:54,160 --> 01:10:57,120 Speaker 1: a piece here, a piece there. The color that this 1287 01:10:57,280 --> 01:11:02,320 Speaker 1: adds of at again is also, wow, that's not familiar 1288 01:11:02,400 --> 01:11:06,559 Speaker 1: of like who you want? Yeah, never happened before to 1289 01:11:06,600 --> 01:11:09,559 Speaker 1: where it's like you only want a certain person to 1290 01:11:09,640 --> 01:11:14,240 Speaker 1: help and if it's wrong, like I think of like 1291 01:11:15,280 --> 01:11:21,840 Speaker 1: when my my tad. My my five year old, is like, hey, 1292 01:11:21,920 --> 01:11:24,720 Speaker 1: can someone watch you know, TV with me? And I'm like, 1293 01:11:24,760 --> 01:11:28,040 Speaker 1: I'll watch TV with you. She's like, not you, and 1294 01:11:28,160 --> 01:11:30,680 Speaker 1: I'm like, wait what. She's like, I want mommy to 1295 01:11:30,680 --> 01:11:33,240 Speaker 1: watch TV with me. I'm like, mommy's working right now. 1296 01:11:33,240 --> 01:11:35,760 Speaker 1: And then she'll be like what about my sister? And 1297 01:11:35,840 --> 01:11:38,280 Speaker 1: I'm like, your sister can't either because she's on punishment. 1298 01:11:38,479 --> 01:11:40,880 Speaker 1: I could watch it with you. I'm not doing anything. Well, no, 1299 01:11:40,920 --> 01:11:42,680 Speaker 1: I don't want to watch TV anymore. And it's just 1300 01:11:42,760 --> 01:11:48,680 Speaker 1: like only the disrespect I do not have. Nobody's a 1301 01:11:48,720 --> 01:11:51,320 Speaker 1: daddy's girl in my house. It's the worst. But the 1302 01:11:51,479 --> 01:11:58,040 Speaker 1: idea of being like just the complication of like whose 1303 01:11:58,120 --> 01:12:00,280 Speaker 1: movement is this? I say, I would say, like whose 1304 01:12:00,320 --> 01:12:04,080 Speaker 1: movement is this? And that's where when the whole like 1305 01:12:04,720 --> 01:12:09,160 Speaker 1: the play of the outside agitator play, that's where you're like, well, 1306 01:12:09,439 --> 01:12:11,960 Speaker 1: well crap, dude, Like you kind of got a point 1307 01:12:11,960 --> 01:12:15,160 Speaker 1: there because y'all outside of this are saying this is 1308 01:12:15,240 --> 01:12:18,960 Speaker 1: your cause and so you got this bigger cause. In 1309 01:12:19,000 --> 01:12:22,040 Speaker 1: the meantime, these ladies who are actually doing the work 1310 01:12:22,080 --> 01:12:25,000 Speaker 1: are like, I don't know what all y'all arguing about 1311 01:12:25,400 --> 01:12:27,920 Speaker 1: we just I don't want to work for eighty hours 1312 01:12:29,360 --> 01:12:31,560 Speaker 1: and like that's what I'm here for. And I I 1313 01:12:32,120 --> 01:12:35,240 Speaker 1: see how and we really can use your money. I 1314 01:12:35,240 --> 01:12:37,040 Speaker 1: don't care how much of us don'te that you got 1315 01:12:37,080 --> 01:12:39,800 Speaker 1: money for us? Like yeah, thank you, you know what 1316 01:12:39,800 --> 01:12:42,720 Speaker 1: I'm saying. And you're saying, wait, so you're saying we 1317 01:12:42,760 --> 01:12:45,439 Speaker 1: shouldn't take their money. So I'm like, okay, well do 1318 01:12:45,520 --> 01:12:47,240 Speaker 1: you got money for us? Oh? You ain't got no 1319 01:12:47,320 --> 01:12:50,000 Speaker 1: money for us? Because you mad at them. It's just like, 1320 01:12:50,040 --> 01:12:53,719 Speaker 1: well crap, dude, like like, well none of you'all work here, 1321 01:12:54,080 --> 01:12:58,759 Speaker 1: like like we actually work. It's so the color of that. Yeah, 1322 01:12:59,520 --> 01:13:02,040 Speaker 1: you know if anybody's got a point, right, everybody, and 1323 01:13:02,120 --> 01:13:05,440 Speaker 1: everyone's got a point, yeah, the point you know, these 1324 01:13:05,520 --> 01:13:06,880 Speaker 1: rich ladies they do have a point where they're like, 1325 01:13:06,880 --> 01:13:09,599 Speaker 1: you guys have gotten a lot, like maybe and and 1326 01:13:09,680 --> 01:13:12,360 Speaker 1: people haven't been working for months, that people keep getting 1327 01:13:12,400 --> 01:13:15,120 Speaker 1: arrested and beaten. Maybe it's time to just take what 1328 01:13:15,200 --> 01:13:17,600 Speaker 1: you can get. The socialists have a point where they're like, 1329 01:13:17,720 --> 01:13:21,639 Speaker 1: but this doesn't fix nearly everything. Um, and you don't. 1330 01:13:21,680 --> 01:13:24,200 Speaker 1: Really it's not really your place to say when we 1331 01:13:24,240 --> 01:13:26,639 Speaker 1: should settle, because you're never going to have to settle 1332 01:13:26,640 --> 01:13:29,760 Speaker 1: you're rich. And then the kind of more moderate laborers 1333 01:13:29,840 --> 01:13:32,599 Speaker 1: are right when they have a point, when they're like, well, 1334 01:13:32,600 --> 01:13:34,960 Speaker 1: we don't want this to be a big this isn't 1335 01:13:35,000 --> 01:13:37,960 Speaker 1: about socialism force. This is about not working eighty hours 1336 01:13:37,960 --> 01:13:39,679 Speaker 1: a week, and like that's kind of where my interest 1337 01:13:39,760 --> 01:13:42,160 Speaker 1: in it ends. You know, I'm some nineteen year old 1338 01:13:42,200 --> 01:13:44,000 Speaker 1: who just got here and I just want my life 1339 01:13:44,000 --> 01:13:46,559 Speaker 1: to be less miserable, and nobody I'm not trying to trying, 1340 01:13:46,560 --> 01:13:48,800 Speaker 1: I hope. I'm not portraying anyone is right or wrong here. 1341 01:13:48,800 --> 01:13:50,479 Speaker 1: This is just what happens, you know. Yeah, that's my 1342 01:13:50,520 --> 01:13:53,400 Speaker 1: pointures along these lines. Yeah, yeah, that's my point of 1343 01:13:53,439 --> 01:13:55,880 Speaker 1: like the color of life, where it's like it's like 1344 01:13:55,880 --> 01:13:58,000 Speaker 1: like histories and living color, and that's what it is. 1345 01:13:58,000 --> 01:14:00,479 Speaker 1: Where it's like you've got all these different issues and 1346 01:14:00,520 --> 01:14:02,840 Speaker 1: you can't you can't look at it and be like 1347 01:14:03,360 --> 01:14:05,680 Speaker 1: they're right there wrong, they're right there wrong. It's just 1348 01:14:05,800 --> 01:14:09,559 Speaker 1: so complicated. That's crazy. It's just yeah, that's just how 1349 01:14:09,640 --> 01:14:13,800 Speaker 1: things happen. Now, this kind of Peter's out. They get 1350 01:14:14,000 --> 01:14:16,040 Speaker 1: more or less a win in early nineteen ten, and 1351 01:14:16,080 --> 01:14:18,720 Speaker 1: for the next thirteen months or so, life returns to 1352 01:14:18,800 --> 01:14:21,400 Speaker 1: kind of a semblance of normal in the garment industry 1353 01:14:21,439 --> 01:14:26,360 Speaker 1: at the especially at the Triangle shirtwaist factory, production resumes, uh. 1354 01:14:26,520 --> 01:14:29,120 Speaker 1: People get back to work with more reasonable hours and 1355 01:14:29,160 --> 01:14:33,280 Speaker 1: more money. Some things had changed, there'd been significant winds, 1356 01:14:33,840 --> 01:14:37,120 Speaker 1: but obviously, as I noted, nobody was fighting for improved 1357 01:14:37,160 --> 01:14:39,679 Speaker 1: safety here because they thought the factory was pretty safe 1358 01:14:40,200 --> 01:14:42,640 Speaker 1: um or at least compared to what they would had 1359 01:14:42,640 --> 01:14:45,240 Speaker 1: been used to. And another thing they didn't really change 1360 01:14:45,280 --> 01:14:48,320 Speaker 1: was the greed of Blanc and Harris and their fellow bosses. 1361 01:14:48,760 --> 01:14:52,920 Speaker 1: Now we've talked a lot about how flammable garment factories 1362 01:14:52,960 --> 01:14:57,080 Speaker 1: are um and one of the things that had been 1363 01:14:57,120 --> 01:14:59,400 Speaker 1: done by Harris, who set because he was a great 1364 01:14:59,439 --> 01:15:01,200 Speaker 1: he knew how to tailor and stuff, had set up 1365 01:15:01,200 --> 01:15:03,800 Speaker 1: down out the layout of this factory is he had 1366 01:15:03,920 --> 01:15:06,559 Speaker 1: designed the floor of the factory so that the cutters 1367 01:15:06,600 --> 01:15:08,160 Speaker 1: and these are the people who are like cutting out 1368 01:15:08,160 --> 01:15:10,559 Speaker 1: the different sort of like scraps that get sewn together. 1369 01:15:11,000 --> 01:15:13,160 Speaker 1: These are the people who produced the most waiste scrap 1370 01:15:13,200 --> 01:15:15,639 Speaker 1: and waste paper. So these guys all do their's work 1371 01:15:15,640 --> 01:15:18,120 Speaker 1: on these enormous tables. And one of Harris's innovations is 1372 01:15:18,160 --> 01:15:21,640 Speaker 1: to put trash waste baskets underneath the table, so you 1373 01:15:21,640 --> 01:15:24,320 Speaker 1: can just sweep your waist right into the right under 1374 01:15:24,360 --> 01:15:28,559 Speaker 1: the table, very efficient. This also means that you get 1375 01:15:28,760 --> 01:15:32,200 Speaker 1: hundreds of pounds of cotton and tracing paper and cloth 1376 01:15:32,800 --> 01:15:36,160 Speaker 1: crammed together loosely so that there's air in between all 1377 01:15:36,160 --> 01:15:39,759 Speaker 1: of them underneath these tables, which basically makes them fuel 1378 01:15:39,800 --> 01:15:44,720 Speaker 1: air bombs. Yeah, I was like, wait, yeah, yeah, so 1379 01:15:45,120 --> 01:15:48,639 Speaker 1: everyone knew these were horrific fire hazards. The Triangle factory 1380 01:15:48,680 --> 01:15:52,720 Speaker 1: had to note where the accidental fires and I'm specifying accidental. 1381 01:15:52,760 --> 01:15:55,960 Speaker 1: I'll explain why here. Prior to nineteen eleven, one of 1382 01:15:56,000 --> 01:15:58,759 Speaker 1: which was put out by Harris himself. Buckets of water 1383 01:15:58,840 --> 01:16:01,760 Speaker 1: were stationed around the factory floor. A hose that was 1384 01:16:01,800 --> 01:16:04,320 Speaker 1: supposed to work was cut kept near the cutting table, 1385 01:16:04,640 --> 01:16:08,920 Speaker 1: although it had been allowed to rust shut. Most significantly, though, 1386 01:16:09,160 --> 01:16:12,360 Speaker 1: the building did not have a sprinkler system and the 1387 01:16:12,439 --> 01:16:16,840 Speaker 1: workers did not participate in fire drills. Now, neither of 1388 01:16:16,880 --> 01:16:19,960 Speaker 1: these things were required in garment factories under New York 1389 01:16:20,040 --> 01:16:24,040 Speaker 1: law in nineteen eleven, but sprinklers were widely available in 1390 01:16:24,080 --> 01:16:27,160 Speaker 1: fact starting in the eighteen eighties. They've become required in 1391 01:16:27,200 --> 01:16:31,680 Speaker 1: New England cotton mills, alongside firewalls and fireproof doors to 1392 01:16:31,720 --> 01:16:34,320 Speaker 1: create safe zones for employees in the event of ablaze. 1393 01:16:34,520 --> 01:16:38,280 Speaker 1: Cotton mills, as we've said, cotton's explosive, basically very dangerous places. 1394 01:16:38,520 --> 01:16:40,600 Speaker 1: In the eighteen eighties, all of these things come to 1395 01:16:40,640 --> 01:16:43,360 Speaker 1: cotton mills, and cotton mills suddenly become pretty safe places 1396 01:16:43,400 --> 01:16:46,600 Speaker 1: to work by comparison. But this doesn't get required in 1397 01:16:46,680 --> 01:16:49,160 Speaker 1: garment factories, even though they're dealing with a lot of 1398 01:16:49,200 --> 01:16:54,200 Speaker 1: the same materials. Um Now, part of the reason why 1399 01:16:54,240 --> 01:16:56,679 Speaker 1: these weren't put in the factories has to do with greed, 1400 01:16:56,760 --> 01:16:58,360 Speaker 1: and not the kind of greed you think. A lot 1401 01:16:58,360 --> 01:17:00,439 Speaker 1: of times people like will say, well, they didn't put 1402 01:17:00,439 --> 01:17:04,200 Speaker 1: in sprinklers because sprinkler systems were expensive. That's not really 1403 01:17:04,200 --> 01:17:06,800 Speaker 1: the reason. The real explanation for why there were no 1404 01:17:06,920 --> 01:17:10,440 Speaker 1: sprinklers in the Triangle factory starts with the way insurance 1405 01:17:10,479 --> 01:17:13,840 Speaker 1: worked in Manhattan during this period. So all of the 1406 01:17:13,840 --> 01:17:17,719 Speaker 1: insurance brokers, the guys who are selling insurance to companies, 1407 01:17:18,040 --> 01:17:21,479 Speaker 1: colluded together because these guys make their money. When you 1408 01:17:21,520 --> 01:17:24,280 Speaker 1: sell a policies an insurance broker, you get a percentage 1409 01:17:24,280 --> 01:17:26,479 Speaker 1: of the value of that sale. That's where how you 1410 01:17:26,560 --> 01:17:29,760 Speaker 1: make your money. So you make more money if you 1411 01:17:29,840 --> 01:17:32,880 Speaker 1: sell more policies, which means you don't want to be 1412 01:17:33,040 --> 01:17:38,120 Speaker 1: denying anybody policies. And normally the way you think about 1413 01:17:38,160 --> 01:17:40,439 Speaker 1: an insurance policy, the safer your building is, the more 1414 01:17:40,520 --> 01:17:43,519 Speaker 1: safety measures like like sprinklers you have in your building, 1415 01:17:43,720 --> 01:17:47,600 Speaker 1: the lower insurance premiums are. But if your insurance premiums 1416 01:17:47,600 --> 01:17:50,960 Speaker 1: are lower, that means the broker gets less money. So 1417 01:17:51,080 --> 01:17:53,720 Speaker 1: the broker doesn't want to give you They want to 1418 01:17:53,760 --> 01:17:58,120 Speaker 1: have a lot of insurance policies for dangerous buildings. They 1419 01:17:58,160 --> 01:18:00,679 Speaker 1: don't want safety measures in because that means they get 1420 01:18:00,760 --> 01:18:03,400 Speaker 1: less money. So I'm gonna quote again from the book 1421 01:18:03,439 --> 01:18:07,200 Speaker 1: Try Changed America here. I know it's pretty fucked. The 1422 01:18:07,360 --> 01:18:12,200 Speaker 1: hustle everywhere, damn and and one of the things, so 1423 01:18:12,240 --> 01:18:16,120 Speaker 1: these brokers are all colluding together. And the brokers are 1424 01:18:16,120 --> 01:18:18,759 Speaker 1: not the insurance companies, right. The brokers work for the companies, 1425 01:18:18,800 --> 01:18:20,759 Speaker 1: but the insurance companies are the ones on the line 1426 01:18:20,760 --> 01:18:23,479 Speaker 1: the broker doesn't pay when there's a fire. And one 1427 01:18:23,479 --> 01:18:25,400 Speaker 1: of the ways in which the brokers kind of get 1428 01:18:25,479 --> 01:18:28,120 Speaker 1: over the fact that what they're doing should be in 1429 01:18:28,160 --> 01:18:33,080 Speaker 1: the worst interest of the insurance company, is they they get. 1430 01:18:33,120 --> 01:18:36,000 Speaker 1: They basically split up the risk for each of these 1431 01:18:36,040 --> 01:18:39,400 Speaker 1: insurance policies among multiple insurance companies, so that if a 1432 01:18:39,439 --> 01:18:42,160 Speaker 1: factory has a horrible fire that destroys a bunch of stuff, 1433 01:18:42,200 --> 01:18:45,000 Speaker 1: every company only pays a little bit of money, and 1434 01:18:45,040 --> 01:18:47,679 Speaker 1: the brokers get as much money still because they're selling 1435 01:18:47,720 --> 01:18:50,960 Speaker 1: as many so they they're they're sharing the risk because 1436 01:18:51,000 --> 01:18:52,800 Speaker 1: none of them have to work in these factories. They 1437 01:18:52,800 --> 01:18:55,080 Speaker 1: don't give a ship how many people die. They just 1438 01:18:55,160 --> 01:18:59,200 Speaker 1: care that they keep selling policies. Um, so I'm gonna 1439 01:18:59,240 --> 01:19:01,679 Speaker 1: quote from Trying Goal the fire that changed America here. 1440 01:19:02,520 --> 01:19:05,200 Speaker 1: Blanck and Harris were perfect examples of this skewed system. 1441 01:19:05,360 --> 01:19:07,720 Speaker 1: Few factory owners paid higher rates than they did, and 1442 01:19:07,760 --> 01:19:09,840 Speaker 1: as a result, they commanded the loyalty of the most 1443 01:19:09,840 --> 01:19:13,280 Speaker 1: powerful brokerage in town. The Triangle owners were so called 1444 01:19:13,439 --> 01:19:16,879 Speaker 1: rotten risks in insurance parlance because they kept having fires, 1445 01:19:17,120 --> 01:19:19,040 Speaker 1: and not just little ones that could be put out 1446 01:19:19,040 --> 01:19:23,360 Speaker 1: by hand. They were repeaters, having collected on several substantial claims, 1447 01:19:23,560 --> 01:19:25,959 Speaker 1: and yet they had little difficulty buying all the insurance 1448 01:19:26,000 --> 01:19:29,280 Speaker 1: they wanted. Some of these repeat fires were likely deliberate. 1449 01:19:29,320 --> 01:19:31,599 Speaker 1: In April of nineteen o two, Blanck and Harris called 1450 01:19:31,600 --> 01:19:34,080 Speaker 1: the fire department about a fire. The n y f 1451 01:19:34,200 --> 01:19:36,560 Speaker 1: D arrived a little too late to save the inventory 1452 01:19:36,560 --> 01:19:39,640 Speaker 1: of the factory, which burnt in its entirety. Thankfully, no 1453 01:19:39,760 --> 01:19:42,679 Speaker 1: workers were present at the time. Blanck and Harris collected 1454 01:19:42,720 --> 01:19:46,400 Speaker 1: a hefty insurance payment. Six months later, they had another fire, 1455 01:19:46,720 --> 01:19:49,360 Speaker 1: also early enough in the morning that no workers were present. 1456 01:19:49,640 --> 01:19:52,599 Speaker 1: Block and Harris collected thirty two thousand dollars in damage 1457 01:19:52,600 --> 01:19:55,720 Speaker 1: from both fires. Both blazes occurred at the end of 1458 01:19:55,760 --> 01:19:57,960 Speaker 1: the busy season, which was the part of the year 1459 01:19:58,000 --> 01:20:00,639 Speaker 1: in which factory owners who had overrest made a demand 1460 01:20:00,680 --> 01:20:02,920 Speaker 1: for their product tended to wind up wind up with 1461 01:20:02,920 --> 01:20:05,519 Speaker 1: a bunch of extra inventory they couldn't sell. So this, 1462 01:20:05,760 --> 01:20:09,000 Speaker 1: these very convenient fires happened right at the time when 1463 01:20:09,040 --> 01:20:12,400 Speaker 1: they needed to get rid of excess inventory. Um in 1464 01:20:12,520 --> 01:20:15,240 Speaker 1: nineteen oh seven, there were two more fires and another 1465 01:20:15,360 --> 01:20:18,000 Speaker 1: factory that they owned, and they followed the same pattern. 1466 01:20:18,320 --> 01:20:21,559 Speaker 1: So these guys are starting fires to destroy their excess 1467 01:20:21,560 --> 01:20:24,519 Speaker 1: to inventory and collecting the insurance on stuff they can't sell. 1468 01:20:24,600 --> 01:20:27,280 Speaker 1: That's part of how they stay profitable. And then you 1469 01:20:27,560 --> 01:20:33,000 Speaker 1: and if you split the insurance among multiple guests, everybody's happy. 1470 01:20:33,360 --> 01:20:37,720 Speaker 1: Everybody's happy. The people that will die. Yeah. Yeah. So 1471 01:20:38,040 --> 01:20:40,559 Speaker 1: the fact that it works this way means insurance brokers 1472 01:20:40,640 --> 01:20:44,120 Speaker 1: don't really want to confront this abuse of their policies. Um, 1473 01:20:44,320 --> 01:20:46,920 Speaker 1: because the brokers collect the bounty and each new policy. Now, 1474 01:20:46,960 --> 01:20:49,200 Speaker 1: some of the insurance companies aren't always happy about this 1475 01:20:49,240 --> 01:20:52,280 Speaker 1: because this does cost the money, but the brokers are 1476 01:20:52,360 --> 01:20:57,360 Speaker 1: fine with this ship um, and garment factory owners are like, 1477 01:20:57,720 --> 01:21:00,639 Speaker 1: this becomes a crucial part of their business. It protects 1478 01:21:00,680 --> 01:21:03,200 Speaker 1: them from the kind of thickle whims of the industry. 1479 01:21:03,640 --> 01:21:06,760 Speaker 1: Um because you know, then, as I think now, the 1480 01:21:06,800 --> 01:21:09,760 Speaker 1: fashion industry hinges on what happens in Paris that year. 1481 01:21:09,840 --> 01:21:12,240 Speaker 1: So if you are geared up to make a bunch 1482 01:21:12,280 --> 01:21:14,519 Speaker 1: of top hats or coat tails or whatever, and then 1483 01:21:14,600 --> 01:21:17,480 Speaker 1: some fucker in Paris decides that's not the hot item, 1484 01:21:17,760 --> 01:21:19,320 Speaker 1: you have a bunch of ship you can't sell, and 1485 01:21:19,360 --> 01:21:24,360 Speaker 1: you gotta light it on fire. Yeah, Sophie and I 1486 01:21:24,400 --> 01:21:27,599 Speaker 1: do the same thing with podcasts we can't air. Um. Yeah, 1487 01:21:27,800 --> 01:21:30,280 Speaker 1: you just gotta light it on fire. You gotta light 1488 01:21:30,320 --> 01:21:34,400 Speaker 1: it on fire. Remember them, Remember the trucker hat craze dude. 1489 01:21:34,720 --> 01:21:37,400 Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah yeah. So I'm like, what about the 1490 01:21:37,439 --> 01:21:40,000 Speaker 1: guy that like sitting on a box of trucker hats? 1491 01:21:40,000 --> 01:21:43,040 Speaker 1: Too bad? You can't the Von Dutch joints. Yeah, you 1492 01:21:43,040 --> 01:21:45,800 Speaker 1: gotta burn them things. Yeah. I think there's a lot 1493 01:21:45,840 --> 01:21:48,760 Speaker 1: of Von Dutch hats going around in a rack or someplace. Now. 1494 01:21:48,800 --> 01:21:50,959 Speaker 1: It's like with all of the old shirts from political 1495 01:21:51,040 --> 01:21:58,600 Speaker 1: candidates that wind up in Ecuador someplace. Yeah yeah, yeah. 1496 01:21:58,800 --> 01:22:02,160 Speaker 1: So um Block and Harris again not the only business 1497 01:22:02,200 --> 01:22:04,440 Speaker 1: owners to do this. This is the norm in the industry. 1498 01:22:04,640 --> 01:22:07,160 Speaker 1: But the fact that such a practice is the norm 1499 01:22:07,200 --> 01:22:11,120 Speaker 1: means that factory owners, like insurance brokers, have a vested 1500 01:22:11,240 --> 01:22:17,240 Speaker 1: interest in avoiding fire prevention measures. Sprinklers can't discriminate between 1501 01:22:17,280 --> 01:22:20,960 Speaker 1: a safe, intentional fire meant to create create an insurance payment, 1502 01:22:21,320 --> 01:22:24,720 Speaker 1: or an accidental fire. And if you disable your sprinklers 1503 01:22:24,720 --> 01:22:28,240 Speaker 1: before you carry out an intentional fire, that looks suspicious 1504 01:22:28,280 --> 01:22:33,400 Speaker 1: and you'll get in trouble with the cops. Yeah, now 1505 01:22:34,479 --> 01:22:37,240 Speaker 1: it's arson. So you don't want to have sprinklers because 1506 01:22:37,280 --> 01:22:40,519 Speaker 1: you rely on being able to start fires. Now, as 1507 01:22:40,520 --> 01:22:43,719 Speaker 1: it happened, nineteen eleven was the year that Paris turned 1508 01:22:43,800 --> 01:22:47,600 Speaker 1: on the short waist demand dropped in so many manufacturers 1509 01:22:47,600 --> 01:22:50,680 Speaker 1: were burning their wares that one large insurance company had 1510 01:22:50,720 --> 01:22:54,479 Speaker 1: to cancel their policies with all shirtwaist makers. Block and 1511 01:22:54,520 --> 01:22:58,680 Speaker 1: Harris stayed insured though and in fact they were over insured. 1512 01:22:58,720 --> 01:23:01,400 Speaker 1: They were paying enormous ray. It's to carry more insurance 1513 01:23:01,400 --> 01:23:04,480 Speaker 1: than the actual value of the content of the factory. 1514 01:23:05,439 --> 01:23:07,639 Speaker 1: Why they did this because this costs them a lot 1515 01:23:07,640 --> 01:23:10,040 Speaker 1: of money. Up until you get the payout, you're spending 1516 01:23:10,040 --> 01:23:12,200 Speaker 1: a lot of money. Dave von Drell, who wrote the 1517 01:23:12,200 --> 01:23:15,160 Speaker 1: book Triangles, a very good journalists. The reason he suspects 1518 01:23:15,200 --> 01:23:17,599 Speaker 1: both of these men did this is that they were 1519 01:23:17,640 --> 01:23:20,040 Speaker 1: planning because again, these guys own a bunch of factories, right, 1520 01:23:20,080 --> 01:23:22,679 Speaker 1: they have multiple companies making shirtwaists. They have a bunch 1521 01:23:22,720 --> 01:23:25,599 Speaker 1: of excess inventory. He suspects at the end of the year, 1522 01:23:25,640 --> 01:23:28,040 Speaker 1: they were going to take all of their excess inventory, 1523 01:23:28,200 --> 01:23:31,120 Speaker 1: put it in the Triangle factory and lighted on fire 1524 01:23:31,240 --> 01:23:36,720 Speaker 1: for an insurance payment with several million modern dollars. Hints 1525 01:23:36,920 --> 01:23:40,400 Speaker 1: von Drell writes, quote, they could not put sprinklers in 1526 01:23:40,439 --> 01:23:42,920 Speaker 1: their factory if they thought it might need to burn sometime, 1527 01:23:43,040 --> 01:23:45,720 Speaker 1: and they might think that instituting fire drills in a 1528 01:23:45,760 --> 01:23:48,439 Speaker 1: world where few factories had them would make them look 1529 01:23:48,479 --> 01:23:51,320 Speaker 1: suspiciously conscious of the issue. So they're not even willing 1530 01:23:51,360 --> 01:23:53,559 Speaker 1: to do fire drills because it might make it look 1531 01:23:53,600 --> 01:23:56,600 Speaker 1: like they're expecting a fire, because they're absolutely planning to 1532 01:23:56,640 --> 01:24:01,880 Speaker 1: burn this sucker down. Yeah. Yeah, What a strange interrogation though, 1533 01:24:01,880 --> 01:24:03,920 Speaker 1: to where it was like, hey, why are y'all doing 1534 01:24:03,960 --> 01:24:06,760 Speaker 1: fire drills? It's like it just in case there was 1535 01:24:07,840 --> 01:24:10,479 Speaker 1: there might have been fired. I don't understand why this 1536 01:24:10,840 --> 01:24:12,760 Speaker 1: was Like, no, nobody else they didn't do no fire 1537 01:24:12,840 --> 01:24:15,760 Speaker 1: drills buying over there. It's interesting you started doing fire 1538 01:24:15,840 --> 01:24:17,599 Speaker 1: drills right before you have to think on on fire, 1539 01:24:17,680 --> 01:24:20,559 Speaker 1: Like why wouldn't you play it cool enough to be like, yeah, 1540 01:24:20,760 --> 01:24:23,519 Speaker 1: thank god, we did it, like, you know, we saved 1541 01:24:23,560 --> 01:24:25,320 Speaker 1: a lot of lives. We saved a lot of lives. 1542 01:24:25,320 --> 01:24:27,840 Speaker 1: Why we did it, you know? Man? Yeah, when you 1543 01:24:27,920 --> 01:24:30,000 Speaker 1: when you gotta hustle, though, when you when you're working 1544 01:24:30,000 --> 01:24:31,760 Speaker 1: on trying to hit a lick, man, you gotta think 1545 01:24:31,760 --> 01:24:33,479 Speaker 1: of every angle, and that was one of the angles 1546 01:24:33,479 --> 01:24:36,040 Speaker 1: he thought of, like, look, man, we can't look like 1547 01:24:36,120 --> 01:24:39,080 Speaker 1: we might have been prepared just in case of disaster happened, 1548 01:24:39,160 --> 01:24:43,240 Speaker 1: because it's not a disaster, it's a plan. Yep. Was 1549 01:24:43,280 --> 01:24:45,400 Speaker 1: it one of those like like you said everybody was 1550 01:24:45,439 --> 01:24:47,519 Speaker 1: doing it? Was this one of those like yeah, like 1551 01:24:47,600 --> 01:24:51,240 Speaker 1: worst kept secrets in the city, Like everybody knew, everybody 1552 01:24:50,560 --> 01:24:55,240 Speaker 1: the people that journalists right about it. Everyone knows this 1553 01:24:55,360 --> 01:24:58,320 Speaker 1: goes down because it's not like obviously none of these 1554 01:24:58,400 --> 01:25:03,320 Speaker 1: rich guys are admitting it, but it's not. Nobody. Nobody is. Yeah, 1555 01:25:03,360 --> 01:25:07,760 Speaker 1: nobody thinks this isn't happening. So this brings us to 1556 01:25:07,840 --> 01:25:12,599 Speaker 1: the fire. On March nineteen eleven, there were roughly six 1557 01:25:12,680 --> 01:25:15,880 Speaker 1: hundred workers in the Triangle factory in the late afternoon 1558 01:25:16,120 --> 01:25:19,240 Speaker 1: when closing time came for the work day. The fire 1559 01:25:19,360 --> 01:25:21,559 Speaker 1: started at one of the cutting tables. Remember how I 1560 01:25:21,640 --> 01:25:24,680 Speaker 1: described these tables are basically giant fuel air bombs that 1561 01:25:24,760 --> 01:25:27,600 Speaker 1: people work at. Um the table had been prepped for 1562 01:25:27,600 --> 01:25:29,000 Speaker 1: the next day of work, which meanted it had a 1563 01:25:29,080 --> 01:25:31,840 Speaker 1: hundred and twenty layers of tissue, paper and fabric on 1564 01:25:31,920 --> 01:25:34,679 Speaker 1: top of it, and then hundreds of pounds of scraps 1565 01:25:34,720 --> 01:25:38,320 Speaker 1: in the waist bin beneath it. Now, for obvious reasons, 1566 01:25:38,479 --> 01:25:43,839 Speaker 1: smoking was banned in the factory, but these cutters, remember 1567 01:25:43,880 --> 01:25:45,920 Speaker 1: the cutters are the most important part of the whole operation. 1568 01:25:45,920 --> 01:25:48,360 Speaker 1: These are some the only men working. They're they're the 1569 01:25:48,400 --> 01:25:52,720 Speaker 1: most highly paid workers. They're irreplaceable, right because Number one, 1570 01:25:52,920 --> 01:25:55,400 Speaker 1: the guys who were cutting from the big fabric swashed 1571 01:25:55,400 --> 01:25:57,880 Speaker 1: to make the things that people sew together. If they're 1572 01:25:57,920 --> 01:26:00,479 Speaker 1: good at their job, they waste less fabric, which saves 1573 01:26:00,479 --> 01:26:02,120 Speaker 1: you money. If they're good at their job, they put 1574 01:26:02,120 --> 01:26:04,360 Speaker 1: out more stuff faster, which allows you to make more, 1575 01:26:04,360 --> 01:26:08,000 Speaker 1: which is so these guys. It's in no the owners 1576 01:26:08,479 --> 01:26:11,120 Speaker 1: band smoking in the factory. But also nobody wants to 1577 01:26:11,160 --> 01:26:14,040 Speaker 1: make these guys unhappy because they don't have to work here, 1578 01:26:14,080 --> 01:26:15,840 Speaker 1: then go elsewhere, right, they get that they can get 1579 01:26:15,840 --> 01:26:19,960 Speaker 1: money anywhere. Um So, as best as we can tell, 1580 01:26:20,960 --> 01:26:23,719 Speaker 1: so one of them was smoking. One of them smoked 1581 01:26:23,720 --> 01:26:27,400 Speaker 1: a cigaretteitor cigar, we don't really know, but he snuck 1582 01:26:27,400 --> 01:26:30,519 Speaker 1: a smoke, which was very common. It had caused some 1583 01:26:30,640 --> 01:26:34,200 Speaker 1: minor fires before, um and they either tossed They either 1584 01:26:34,240 --> 01:26:36,519 Speaker 1: put out their match and tossed it in in the 1585 01:26:36,840 --> 01:26:38,920 Speaker 1: waste basket which is filled with hundreds of pounds of 1586 01:26:38,920 --> 01:26:42,519 Speaker 1: Coston backing and paper, or they tossed their cigarette button 1587 01:26:42,520 --> 01:26:44,479 Speaker 1: and they probably put it out first, but not all 1588 01:26:44,520 --> 01:26:48,080 Speaker 1: it would take is a single ember, you know, yeah, yeah, 1589 01:26:48,240 --> 01:26:49,639 Speaker 1: it may have just been that. It may have been 1590 01:26:49,680 --> 01:26:51,599 Speaker 1: somebody put it out. They thought they were being careful, 1591 01:26:51,640 --> 01:26:54,280 Speaker 1: they tossed it in, and there's one little red ember 1592 01:26:54,320 --> 01:26:57,040 Speaker 1: the size of a fucking hair follicle, and that's what 1593 01:26:57,160 --> 01:27:00,559 Speaker 1: starts all this um and the what ever it is, 1594 01:27:01,040 --> 01:27:05,080 Speaker 1: it catches um and it fucking goes up like a 1595 01:27:05,479 --> 01:27:09,080 Speaker 1: like it is a fire bomb, basically um. Now workers 1596 01:27:09,160 --> 01:27:11,479 Speaker 1: rushed to grab pails of water to put out the blaze, 1597 01:27:11,720 --> 01:27:14,200 Speaker 1: and honestly, like one of the big heroes of this 1598 01:27:14,280 --> 01:27:17,000 Speaker 1: is a guy who's who's initially attempts to stop the 1599 01:27:17,000 --> 01:27:20,280 Speaker 1: blaze and then helps rescue dozens of people, it's possible, 1600 01:27:20,920 --> 01:27:23,240 Speaker 1: as heroic as he was, that he got people killed 1601 01:27:23,560 --> 01:27:26,400 Speaker 1: because he tried to stop the fire rather than immediately 1602 01:27:26,439 --> 01:27:29,599 Speaker 1: focusing on a vactimation. Because by the time this thing starts, 1603 01:27:29,760 --> 01:27:32,439 Speaker 1: it's fucked the only thing to do. And again, a 1604 01:27:32,479 --> 01:27:34,360 Speaker 1: lot of lives and I'm not blaming that guy, but 1605 01:27:34,400 --> 01:27:35,720 Speaker 1: a lot of lives would have been saved if they 1606 01:27:35,800 --> 01:27:39,360 Speaker 1: practiced evacuations, because that's the thing that you can't put 1607 01:27:39,400 --> 01:27:42,800 Speaker 1: this funker out once it starts. They don't have the equipment. 1608 01:27:43,080 --> 01:27:45,280 Speaker 1: Workers grab pails of water to try to put out 1609 01:27:45,280 --> 01:27:48,040 Speaker 1: the blaze. Some of them are empty, you'll hear um. 1610 01:27:48,080 --> 01:27:49,560 Speaker 1: But even if they hadn't been, I don't think it 1611 01:27:49,560 --> 01:27:52,320 Speaker 1: would have helped. Um. I'm gonna quote from a write 1612 01:27:52,360 --> 01:27:55,439 Speaker 1: up and history dot Com here. The manager attempted to 1613 01:27:55,479 --> 01:27:57,960 Speaker 1: use the fire hose to extinguish it, but was unsuccessful 1614 01:27:58,000 --> 01:28:00,639 Speaker 1: as the hose was rotted and its valve was did shut. 1615 01:28:00,800 --> 01:28:03,240 Speaker 1: As the fire grew, panic and suit and the hose 1616 01:28:03,360 --> 01:28:06,080 Speaker 1: might have helped. The young workers tried to exit the 1617 01:28:06,120 --> 01:28:08,719 Speaker 1: building by the elevator, but it could hold only twelve 1618 01:28:08,720 --> 01:28:10,960 Speaker 1: people and the operator was able to make just four 1619 01:28:11,000 --> 01:28:13,559 Speaker 1: trips back and forth before it broke down amidst the 1620 01:28:13,560 --> 01:28:16,639 Speaker 1: heat and flames. In a desperate attempt to escape the fire, 1621 01:28:16,840 --> 01:28:20,000 Speaker 1: the girls left behind waiting for the elevator plunged down 1622 01:28:20,040 --> 01:28:23,240 Speaker 1: the shaft to their deaths. The girls who fled via 1623 01:28:23,280 --> 01:28:26,040 Speaker 1: the stairwells also met awful demises when they found a 1624 01:28:26,120 --> 01:28:28,840 Speaker 1: locked door at the bottom of the stairs. Many were 1625 01:28:28,880 --> 01:28:31,519 Speaker 1: burned alive. They find dozens of bodies next to this door, 1626 01:28:31,760 --> 01:28:35,400 Speaker 1: just lay on, blumped together. Within eighteen minutes, it was 1627 01:28:35,439 --> 01:28:38,120 Speaker 1: all over forty nine workers had burned to death or 1628 01:28:38,200 --> 01:28:41,040 Speaker 1: been suffocated by smoke. Thirty six were dead in the 1629 01:28:41,040 --> 01:28:44,920 Speaker 1: elevator shaft, and fifty eight died from jumping to the sidewalks, 1630 01:28:44,920 --> 01:28:47,960 Speaker 1: with two more later dying from their injuries. A total 1631 01:28:48,040 --> 01:28:50,280 Speaker 1: of a hundred and forty six people were killed by 1632 01:28:50,280 --> 01:28:56,040 Speaker 1: the fire. Now Dave von Drelle goes into much more 1633 01:28:56,080 --> 01:28:58,080 Speaker 1: detail about the fire and the heroism of the people, 1634 01:28:58,120 --> 01:29:01,759 Speaker 1: Like these elevator attendants are incredibly brave because they're they're 1635 01:29:01,800 --> 01:29:05,080 Speaker 1: writing an elevator up into flames, licking at their heads 1636 01:29:05,120 --> 01:29:08,200 Speaker 1: to try and save as many people as they possibly 1637 01:29:09,680 --> 01:29:13,640 Speaker 1: they get stuck, Yeah, they could have gotten stuck on 1638 01:29:13,680 --> 01:29:17,080 Speaker 1: any one of those in burn Incredibly brave people. Um. 1639 01:29:17,280 --> 01:29:21,120 Speaker 1: There's a lot of very brave people. Um. Now, again, 1640 01:29:21,320 --> 01:29:23,280 Speaker 1: a big part of why so many people die is 1641 01:29:23,320 --> 01:29:26,920 Speaker 1: that Blanc and Harris had locked the main exit. UM, 1642 01:29:27,000 --> 01:29:29,559 Speaker 1: so that because they their employees were getting ready to leave, 1643 01:29:29,560 --> 01:29:31,240 Speaker 1: they wanted to search them before they left to make 1644 01:29:31,240 --> 01:29:34,760 Speaker 1: sure nobody steaming ship. But maybe the bigger problem was 1645 01:29:34,840 --> 01:29:38,040 Speaker 1: the fire escape, which we've already talked about, didn't really work. 1646 01:29:38,120 --> 01:29:41,240 Speaker 1: So people flood to the fire escape, which is tiny 1647 01:29:41,400 --> 01:29:45,360 Speaker 1: and poorly constructed, and eventually it collapses and people fall 1648 01:29:45,439 --> 01:29:48,360 Speaker 1: to their doom. A lot of people get impaled. Oh god, 1649 01:29:48,560 --> 01:29:51,799 Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's just horrible. In the weeks 1650 01:29:51,840 --> 01:29:55,559 Speaker 1: that followed the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire workers safety suddenly 1651 01:29:55,600 --> 01:29:58,760 Speaker 1: became a matter of paramount concern for union organizers and 1652 01:29:58,880 --> 01:30:01,320 Speaker 1: for the local government. They're is an outrage against this, 1653 01:30:01,560 --> 01:30:03,920 Speaker 1: Like a hundred thousand people take to the streets. There's 1654 01:30:04,040 --> 01:30:07,960 Speaker 1: mass demonstrations against this. People demand new fire safety codes 1655 01:30:08,000 --> 01:30:11,200 Speaker 1: and more fire inspectors. In October of nineteen eleven, just 1656 01:30:11,280 --> 01:30:14,960 Speaker 1: months after the disaster, the United Association of Safety Engineers 1657 01:30:15,000 --> 01:30:17,760 Speaker 1: was founded. A fire prevention law was passed that same 1658 01:30:17,760 --> 01:30:20,240 Speaker 1: month which required all factories in New York City to 1659 01:30:20,280 --> 01:30:24,040 Speaker 1: install sprinkler systems in their buildings. Now, one of the 1660 01:30:24,040 --> 01:30:25,760 Speaker 1: people who had been passing by on the street at 1661 01:30:25,760 --> 01:30:27,960 Speaker 1: the time and have watched, didn't just see the fire, 1662 01:30:28,160 --> 01:30:31,280 Speaker 1: watched dozens of women leap to their deaths and splatter 1663 01:30:31,360 --> 01:30:33,960 Speaker 1: on the fucking payment. One of the people who sees 1664 01:30:34,040 --> 01:30:37,800 Speaker 1: this is a woman named Francis Perkins. Francis Perkins, twenty 1665 01:30:37,840 --> 01:30:40,600 Speaker 1: years later or so, becomes the U S Secretary of 1666 01:30:40,680 --> 01:30:47,160 Speaker 1: Labor under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Yeah. Perkins mentions the Triangle 1667 01:30:47,240 --> 01:30:50,920 Speaker 1: Fire constantly and the speeches she gives when she's made 1668 01:30:50,920 --> 01:30:53,920 Speaker 1: Secretary of Labor and repeatedly recalls the moment when she 1669 01:30:53,960 --> 01:30:56,799 Speaker 1: watches these women leap to their deaths to avoid burning alive. 1670 01:30:57,200 --> 01:31:00,559 Speaker 1: Quote from Francis, they couldn't hold on any longer. There 1671 01:31:00,640 --> 01:31:03,360 Speaker 1: was no place to go. The fire was between them 1672 01:31:03,360 --> 01:31:05,960 Speaker 1: and any means of exit. It's that awful choice people 1673 01:31:05,960 --> 01:31:08,679 Speaker 1: talk of, what kind of choice to make. I shall 1674 01:31:08,720 --> 01:31:11,320 Speaker 1: never forget the frozen horror that came across as we 1675 01:31:11,400 --> 01:31:14,679 Speaker 1: stood with our hands on our throats, watching that horrible site, 1676 01:31:14,960 --> 01:31:19,880 Speaker 1: knowing there was no help. So this becomes this, This 1677 01:31:19,920 --> 01:31:22,439 Speaker 1: is this is like her. She makes it her life 1678 01:31:22,520 --> 01:31:24,840 Speaker 1: quest to never be that helpless in the face of 1679 01:31:24,880 --> 01:31:27,519 Speaker 1: it as aster like this again, and as Secretary of Labor, 1680 01:31:27,560 --> 01:31:32,200 Speaker 1: Perkins establishes the Factory Investigating Commission, which lobbies for stronger 1681 01:31:32,240 --> 01:31:34,799 Speaker 1: safety measures and makes your factories are meeting certain minimum 1682 01:31:34,800 --> 01:31:38,880 Speaker 1: safety standards. She serves for twelve years, during which she 1683 01:31:39,000 --> 01:31:43,080 Speaker 1: is key informing and implementing not just reforms of safety, 1684 01:31:43,320 --> 01:31:46,519 Speaker 1: she helps push the Social Security Act through She helps 1685 01:31:46,560 --> 01:31:50,200 Speaker 1: to create unemployment insurance. She pushes for the establishment of 1686 01:31:50,240 --> 01:31:53,600 Speaker 1: the minimum wage, and she legislates the Guarantee for the 1687 01:31:53,680 --> 01:31:57,599 Speaker 1: right of workers to organize and collectively bargain. Perkins also 1688 01:31:57,760 --> 01:32:01,679 Speaker 1: establishes the Labor Standards Bureau, which is focused on ensuring 1689 01:32:01,720 --> 01:32:05,760 Speaker 1: employees meet certain employers meet certain minimum safety standards. In 1690 01:32:05,840 --> 01:32:12,080 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, the Labor Standards Bureau becomes Osha whoa. So 1691 01:32:12,200 --> 01:32:16,240 Speaker 1: that was just pivotal for her. Yeah, that, I mean, 1692 01:32:16,280 --> 01:32:19,439 Speaker 1: this is the defining moment of her life in some ways. Obviously, 1693 01:32:19,479 --> 01:32:22,080 Speaker 1: how could you watch this and have it not be 1694 01:32:22,280 --> 01:32:25,240 Speaker 1: you know, yeah, yeah, I mean it could have went 1695 01:32:25,280 --> 01:32:28,280 Speaker 1: the opposite way where she could have, but for it 1696 01:32:28,439 --> 01:32:33,599 Speaker 1: to turn into activism is like many that's amazing. So 1697 01:32:33,680 --> 01:32:36,559 Speaker 1: of course, the sheer level of outrage around the fire 1698 01:32:36,720 --> 01:32:39,200 Speaker 1: ensured that there were immediate calls to charge Blanc and 1699 01:32:39,240 --> 01:32:43,519 Speaker 1: Harris for manslaughter. Both tycoons immediately poured money into an 1700 01:32:43,520 --> 01:32:46,920 Speaker 1: advertising campaign dedicated to buffing their image as a safe 1701 01:32:46,920 --> 01:32:50,479 Speaker 1: and reliable garment manufacturer. Reporters from The New York Times 1702 01:32:50,479 --> 01:32:52,880 Speaker 1: met with Harris in his home and dutifully reported his 1703 01:32:52,920 --> 01:32:55,200 Speaker 1: defense of his actions and claims that he had taken 1704 01:32:55,240 --> 01:32:59,400 Speaker 1: proper precautions. None of this succeeded in assuaging public rage. 1705 01:32:59,680 --> 01:33:02,880 Speaker 1: On a for eleventh, both men were indicted for manslaughter. 1706 01:33:03,560 --> 01:33:06,400 Speaker 1: Since most of the safety features their factory lacked were 1707 01:33:06,439 --> 01:33:09,439 Speaker 1: not mandated by law, the case came down to the 1708 01:33:09,520 --> 01:33:12,360 Speaker 1: question of whether or not they had legally locked the 1709 01:33:12,439 --> 01:33:16,639 Speaker 1: exits from a right up. In Forbes quote, Max Stewart, 1710 01:33:16,680 --> 01:33:19,040 Speaker 1: one of them top defense attorneys of his day, poked 1711 01:33:19,080 --> 01:33:21,320 Speaker 1: holes in the witnesses testimony and made it appear that 1712 01:33:21,360 --> 01:33:24,920 Speaker 1: a key witness's story had been rehearsed. On December, the 1713 01:33:24,920 --> 01:33:27,599 Speaker 1: all male jury returned a verdict of not guilty after 1714 01:33:27,680 --> 01:33:30,920 Speaker 1: less than two hours of deliberation. Isaac Harris and Max 1715 01:33:30,960 --> 01:33:33,800 Speaker 1: Block dropped limply into their chairs as their wives began 1716 01:33:33,880 --> 01:33:37,560 Speaker 1: sobbing quietly just behind them, writes von Drelle in Triangle. 1717 01:33:38,600 --> 01:33:42,439 Speaker 1: Now the shirtwaist Kings had to like because these this, 1718 01:33:42,720 --> 01:33:45,040 Speaker 1: you know, is such an unpopular verdict. They have to 1719 01:33:45,040 --> 01:33:47,280 Speaker 1: sneak out of the courthouse to their limousine, and they 1720 01:33:47,280 --> 01:33:49,400 Speaker 1: get confronted by a young guy whose sister had died 1721 01:33:49,439 --> 01:33:52,200 Speaker 1: in the fire, who screams at them, basically yells at 1722 01:33:52,200 --> 01:33:55,360 Speaker 1: them that they're murderers, which you could argue is accurate. Yeah. 1723 01:33:55,720 --> 01:33:58,479 Speaker 1: Now both guys immediately go on to try to rebuild 1724 01:33:58,479 --> 01:34:01,880 Speaker 1: the Triangle Shirtwaist company. Since even today a lot of 1725 01:34:01,880 --> 01:34:04,519 Speaker 1: people know the term Triangle Shirtwaist fire, even if they 1726 01:34:04,560 --> 01:34:06,519 Speaker 1: don't know what it was. This was kind of a 1727 01:34:06,560 --> 01:34:12,559 Speaker 1: lost cause, right Yea, the brand has been poisoned. Brands burned. 1728 01:34:12,600 --> 01:34:17,280 Speaker 1: Bro Yeah. Yeah. Harris and Blanc struggled financially as all 1729 01:34:17,320 --> 01:34:19,479 Speaker 1: of the funds they did make had to go straight 1730 01:34:19,520 --> 01:34:22,160 Speaker 1: to the debt they had to their lawyer. Uh. They 1731 01:34:22,160 --> 01:34:24,800 Speaker 1: were sued in nineteen twelve over their failure to pay 1732 01:34:24,840 --> 01:34:28,040 Speaker 1: a two d and six dollar water bill. However, the 1733 01:34:28,160 --> 01:34:32,559 Speaker 1: tough times did not last long. Late in nineteen twelve, 1734 01:34:32,800 --> 01:34:38,960 Speaker 1: they get the insurance pay out from the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Yeah, 1735 01:34:39,560 --> 01:34:43,120 Speaker 1: they collect a total of sixty thou dollars, which is 1736 01:34:43,160 --> 01:34:46,240 Speaker 1: a funkload of money in nineteen twelve and is more 1737 01:34:46,320 --> 01:34:49,559 Speaker 1: than the fire had cost them in damages. Now they 1738 01:34:49,560 --> 01:34:51,960 Speaker 1: have to pay restitution to the families of the dead, 1739 01:34:52,160 --> 01:34:54,599 Speaker 1: but they just have to pay a week salary, which 1740 01:34:54,680 --> 01:34:58,639 Speaker 1: is like ten or fifteen bucks at most for most 1741 01:34:58,640 --> 01:35:02,240 Speaker 1: of these women. So they walk away from the fire 1742 01:35:02,360 --> 01:35:05,160 Speaker 1: because of the insurance pay out, they profit about four 1743 01:35:05,240 --> 01:35:11,680 Speaker 1: hundred dollars per victim. Oh oh, man, just say it 1744 01:35:11,800 --> 01:35:14,839 Speaker 1: like that. We made like four bucks per dead person. 1745 01:35:18,080 --> 01:35:21,400 Speaker 1: It's just the Empire strikes back always. Yeah, baby, bro, 1746 01:35:21,880 --> 01:35:31,200 Speaker 1: you know it was avoidable disaster mhm ends up making 1747 01:35:31,240 --> 01:35:35,800 Speaker 1: you money, and these guys don't learn a goddamn thing. 1748 01:35:35,960 --> 01:35:39,880 Speaker 1: Of course, in nineteen, the next year, after they get 1749 01:35:39,880 --> 01:35:44,120 Speaker 1: their payment, Blanc, who's running another factory, is issued a 1750 01:35:44,160 --> 01:35:47,000 Speaker 1: warning from an inspector. Because now there's inspectors. So an 1751 01:35:47,000 --> 01:35:50,439 Speaker 1: inspector checks out this new Triangle factory and it finds 1752 01:35:50,479 --> 01:35:53,719 Speaker 1: that he's locked the door of the factory again during 1753 01:35:53,760 --> 01:35:57,400 Speaker 1: work hours. Now the thing that he successfully got off 1754 01:35:57,439 --> 01:36:00,840 Speaker 1: on in court, he's caught doing again the same thing. 1755 01:36:00,920 --> 01:36:04,519 Speaker 1: So the Triangle factory burned. Now you got the Parallelogram factory, 1756 01:36:05,200 --> 01:36:10,000 Speaker 1: and he locked the door again because I mean I did. 1757 01:36:11,080 --> 01:36:12,479 Speaker 1: It's like it kind of sucks for a little bit, 1758 01:36:12,560 --> 01:36:17,280 Speaker 1: but we kind of make spinning guys. It doesn't find 1759 01:36:17,400 --> 01:36:21,639 Speaker 1: twenty dollars for this, so yeah, yeah, it's like yeah, 1760 01:36:21,680 --> 01:36:24,639 Speaker 1: you know, yeah, And a couple of months after that 1761 01:36:24,760 --> 01:36:28,280 Speaker 1: he's he's fined again when another factory inspector finds that 1762 01:36:28,360 --> 01:36:32,520 Speaker 1: he's he's lined the walls with scrap baskets that basically 1763 01:36:32,600 --> 01:36:34,840 Speaker 1: make the whole thing a death traffic because the bomb. 1764 01:36:34,880 --> 01:36:38,639 Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah that does it again? Does it again? 1765 01:36:39,160 --> 01:36:43,760 Speaker 1: What's that thing with Ford? The uh the the car 1766 01:36:44,120 --> 01:36:48,680 Speaker 1: everybody used to make fun of. Uh, But yeah, the 1767 01:36:48,720 --> 01:36:51,719 Speaker 1: Pento that like when they where they put the gas 1768 01:36:51,760 --> 01:36:54,360 Speaker 1: where they put the gas tank was means like it's 1769 01:36:54,360 --> 01:36:57,559 Speaker 1: gonna become a bomb. And the FOD decided it's just 1770 01:36:57,720 --> 01:37:01,439 Speaker 1: cheaper to just pay whatever fine lines if people die, 1771 01:37:01,600 --> 01:37:04,559 Speaker 1: rather than reclaim them and remake them all. I forget 1772 01:37:04,560 --> 01:37:06,760 Speaker 1: what that was called, but there's a term for it. 1773 01:37:06,800 --> 01:37:08,680 Speaker 1: But that's what this reminds me of. Where it's like, 1774 01:37:09,320 --> 01:37:11,639 Speaker 1: I mean, it's cheaper to just pay the fine than 1775 01:37:11,760 --> 01:37:21,040 Speaker 1: to like make the factory safe. Absolutely, yeah, that's wild, guy, 1776 01:37:21,600 --> 01:37:25,120 Speaker 1: it's pretty great. It's pretty great. In nineteen fourteen, both 1777 01:37:25,120 --> 01:37:27,639 Speaker 1: Harris and Blanc were fined when they were caught sewing 1778 01:37:27,720 --> 01:37:31,880 Speaker 1: fake Consumers League labels into their garments. Now, these legal 1779 01:37:32,080 --> 01:37:34,280 Speaker 1: labels where a legacy of the Triangle Fire. They were 1780 01:37:34,280 --> 01:37:38,240 Speaker 1: meant to certify that a factory had safe conditions for 1781 01:37:38,280 --> 01:37:41,920 Speaker 1: its laborers. So obviously everyone gets horrified by unsafe work conditions. 1782 01:37:41,920 --> 01:37:44,280 Speaker 1: They developed this way to show that, like, your factory 1783 01:37:44,320 --> 01:37:47,640 Speaker 1: is safe, and these guys fake having that label so 1784 01:37:47,720 --> 01:37:51,719 Speaker 1: they can't pretend there say yeah, yeah, there is nothing dude, 1785 01:37:51,880 --> 01:37:53,680 Speaker 1: like how many times you picked up something like is 1786 01:37:53,680 --> 01:37:59,080 Speaker 1: this organic? Is this grassbit? Yeah? Look it's on the label. Yeah. 1787 01:37:59,479 --> 01:38:03,040 Speaker 1: And now in nineteen eighteen, though they do finally shut 1788 01:38:03,080 --> 01:38:05,720 Speaker 1: down the Triangle Company, it just never makes as much 1789 01:38:05,760 --> 01:38:09,799 Speaker 1: money as it had before for obvious reasons. Isaac Harris 1790 01:38:09,840 --> 01:38:13,160 Speaker 1: goes back to working as a tailor and Blanc continues 1791 01:38:13,200 --> 01:38:16,879 Speaker 1: to own other garment factories. Neither of them pay anything 1792 01:38:16,920 --> 01:38:20,120 Speaker 1: that we could we would reasonably call a price for 1793 01:38:20,280 --> 01:38:26,960 Speaker 1: what they've done. Show so good time, somebody, Hey, I 1794 01:38:27,000 --> 01:38:32,679 Speaker 1: think the lesson here is that cheating cheaters prosper. That's 1795 01:38:32,680 --> 01:38:42,360 Speaker 1: the lesson. Cheaters do fucking great, cheaters make out like Gangbusters. Cheaters. Uh. So, 1796 01:38:42,920 --> 01:38:45,800 Speaker 1: you know, if you want to learn anything useful from this, 1797 01:38:46,160 --> 01:38:51,280 Speaker 1: just remember to lock the factory door in the fire 1798 01:38:51,360 --> 01:38:55,080 Speaker 1: hazard of a garment factory in your life, whatever that 1799 01:38:55,240 --> 01:38:58,880 Speaker 1: is for you, lock that door, make sure the fire 1800 01:38:59,000 --> 01:39:02,680 Speaker 1: escape isn't function and all you know, yeah, to make 1801 01:39:02,880 --> 01:39:07,240 Speaker 1: no efforts make no efforts to show that you're trying, 1802 01:39:08,040 --> 01:39:12,360 Speaker 1: because because if you show that you're trying, that means 1803 01:39:12,439 --> 01:39:19,720 Speaker 1: you're cheating. Yeah, if you're trying, you're guilty. Yes, you 1804 01:39:19,840 --> 01:39:25,479 Speaker 1: got it. This is a disaster. And that's my motto. 1805 01:39:26,120 --> 01:39:31,559 Speaker 1: M hmm. Don't try because trying means you're guilty. Well, prop, 1806 01:39:32,320 --> 01:39:35,000 Speaker 1: that's gonna do it for us behind the bastards today. 1807 01:39:35,479 --> 01:39:40,840 Speaker 1: How are you? How are you doing? I am that 1808 01:39:41,000 --> 01:39:44,000 Speaker 1: same sinking feeling that every guest has at the end 1809 01:39:44,040 --> 01:39:45,800 Speaker 1: of a show to where you're like, man, I'm glad 1810 01:39:45,840 --> 01:39:47,639 Speaker 1: I got through that. Now I have to think about 1811 01:39:47,640 --> 01:39:51,240 Speaker 1: this for the next until I go to bed that like, 1812 01:39:52,240 --> 01:39:55,800 Speaker 1: this is true, but I had a great time hanging 1813 01:39:55,880 --> 01:39:57,960 Speaker 1: which all it's just it's kind of it's it's a 1814 01:39:57,960 --> 01:40:02,040 Speaker 1: whole mess, man. Mm hmm. It is a whole mess. Welcome, 1815 01:40:02,560 --> 01:40:03,960 Speaker 1: there's got to be you know, it's not a mess. 1816 01:40:04,000 --> 01:40:07,000 Speaker 1: Prop You're not doing. There's no ad right now. It's 1817 01:40:07,000 --> 01:40:10,639 Speaker 1: not a mess. Is your podcast politics? Oh? I was like, wait, 1818 01:40:10,680 --> 01:40:14,160 Speaker 1: are we going to an ad break at the end? Yeah? 1819 01:40:14,240 --> 01:40:18,400 Speaker 1: Club politics were prop man. Man, I like, I'm so 1820 01:40:18,479 --> 01:40:21,960 Speaker 1: excited about being able to like have a consistent, like 1821 01:40:22,040 --> 01:40:24,320 Speaker 1: flow of content that like now, I'm getting so far 1822 01:40:24,360 --> 01:40:26,880 Speaker 1: ahead of myself. So like some of the stuff I'm 1823 01:40:26,920 --> 01:40:31,800 Speaker 1: talking about right now ain't gonna come out until, uh, 1824 01:40:32,080 --> 01:40:35,120 Speaker 1: you know, three weeks from now. So I'm like, crap, dude, 1825 01:40:35,160 --> 01:40:37,800 Speaker 1: how do I stay hot? You know? But man Hood 1826 01:40:37,800 --> 01:40:41,400 Speaker 1: Politics were prop got some great episodes in the can Um. 1827 01:40:41,800 --> 01:40:45,920 Speaker 1: We're covering everything like Joe Biden's from Long Beach, uh, 1828 01:40:46,800 --> 01:40:53,120 Speaker 1: the Israel and Palestine, Armenian genocide, like what it means 1829 01:40:53,160 --> 01:40:56,000 Speaker 1: for to be a foreign ally, like everything. It's all coming. 1830 01:40:57,720 --> 01:41:01,439 Speaker 1: So check it out. It's a weekly as You're welcome, 1831 01:41:02,720 --> 01:41:06,120 Speaker 1: Yes it is. It's a podcast as regular as garment 1832 01:41:06,240 --> 01:41:10,200 Speaker 1: fires in early nineteen hundreds of New York and old 1833 01:41:10,200 --> 01:41:13,000 Speaker 1: tiny guys that always make it out on top. Yeah, 1834 01:41:13,360 --> 01:41:17,160 Speaker 1: always always handle it, and hiring gangsters and prostitutes to 1835 01:41:17,360 --> 01:41:23,120 Speaker 1: beat up workers. American way. I do want that TV show. 1836 01:41:23,760 --> 01:41:25,400 Speaker 1: I was gonna say, that has to be that has 1837 01:41:25,439 --> 01:41:28,200 Speaker 1: to be a show. Yeah, there has to be some 1838 01:41:28,320 --> 01:41:31,519 Speaker 1: character in that that like where the lady was getting 1839 01:41:31,760 --> 01:41:34,400 Speaker 1: getting her ass beat by its prostitute and she comes 1840 01:41:34,479 --> 01:41:36,240 Speaker 1: up with the idea of like maybe I should just 1841 01:41:37,000 --> 01:41:39,560 Speaker 1: maybe I should quit this factory thing and become a prostitute, 1842 01:41:39,600 --> 01:41:42,000 Speaker 1: like and she just like switches sides because she's like 1843 01:41:42,560 --> 01:41:48,080 Speaker 1: so well, we uh. I wrote a book. It's called 1844 01:41:48,080 --> 01:41:51,240 Speaker 1: After the Revolution. You can find the podcast version of 1845 01:41:51,240 --> 01:41:54,519 Speaker 1: that book with sound effects by our own danial Uh. 1846 01:41:54,560 --> 01:41:58,080 Speaker 1: If you if you type after the Revolution into whatever 1847 01:41:58,160 --> 01:42:02,360 Speaker 1: fucking thing your podcast come the funk from um. That's 1848 01:42:02,360 --> 01:42:09,800 Speaker 1: really good. I'm excited about that, man's yeh. I mean 1849 01:42:10,040 --> 01:42:13,759 Speaker 1: the book it's really good, and the podcast is really 1850 01:42:13,800 --> 01:42:17,360 Speaker 1: good and Robert's really good, so should be exciting. You 1851 01:42:17,439 --> 01:42:25,880 Speaker 1: can also find you can find the pub for free online. Okay, 1852 01:42:26,960 --> 01:42:30,640 Speaker 1: just got breaks into a yawn. I was about I 1853 01:42:30,720 --> 01:42:32,280 Speaker 1: was about to, like, let me tell you something, man, 1854 01:42:32,320 --> 01:42:34,920 Speaker 1: because you know I'm I'm publishing a book too, and 1855 01:42:35,080 --> 01:42:38,360 Speaker 1: like as good as you are, Like I thought about, man, 1856 01:42:38,920 --> 01:42:41,640 Speaker 1: just like the way that you guys as well as 1857 01:42:41,720 --> 01:42:44,040 Speaker 1: y'all right, and the way that y'all tore up Ben 1858 01:42:44,120 --> 01:42:47,240 Speaker 1: Shapiro's book. I was thinking about that as I was 1859 01:42:47,280 --> 01:42:49,280 Speaker 1: writing my own and be like, let me make sure 1860 01:42:50,320 --> 01:42:53,479 Speaker 1: I don't get dragged by the homies for me right 1861 01:42:53,520 --> 01:42:56,840 Speaker 1: in the state. Now. Granted, I mean definitely not as 1862 01:42:56,880 --> 01:42:59,880 Speaker 1: bad as that, but there's all every book anyone's if 1863 01:43:00,040 --> 01:43:02,479 Speaker 1: written has dragon ball things. But I think it really 1864 01:43:02,520 --> 01:43:06,880 Speaker 1: makes you dragon bles being been Shapiro. Yeah yeah, yeah, 1865 01:43:06,920 --> 01:43:11,600 Speaker 1: you kind of you kind of came with you, thankfully, 1866 01:43:12,360 --> 01:43:15,360 Speaker 1: very not to the best of my knowledge. Um, you 1867 01:43:15,400 --> 01:43:21,200 Speaker 1: always buy two boards when you go to the home depot. 1868 01:43:22,320 --> 01:43:26,800 Speaker 1: That's the funniest thing I've seen. I'm gonna support him. 1869 01:43:26,840 --> 01:43:29,840 Speaker 1: I was like, Bam, you spent a dollar fit. Yeah, 1870 01:43:29,920 --> 01:43:32,400 Speaker 1: that's like that's like you could. You would have given 1871 01:43:32,439 --> 01:43:34,800 Speaker 1: them more money if you'd bought a diet coke, Like, 1872 01:43:34,920 --> 01:43:40,400 Speaker 1: come on, buddy, bro, this is your point. Like, yeah, also, 1873 01:43:40,479 --> 01:43:43,200 Speaker 1: you're a millionaire, get like an angle grinder or a 1874 01:43:43,280 --> 01:43:49,839 Speaker 1: fucking circular saw or something by a power. He doesn't, 1875 01:43:49,920 --> 01:43:51,920 Speaker 1: but like you're trying to pretend to be cool. What 1876 01:43:51,960 --> 01:43:56,320 Speaker 1: are you doing? It was just so funny because I'm like, 1877 01:43:56,880 --> 01:44:00,240 Speaker 1: you're making this huge political statement and you show me 1878 01:44:00,320 --> 01:44:04,280 Speaker 1: that little lass bag in your hands, and I was like, wait, 1879 01:44:04,360 --> 01:44:06,680 Speaker 1: is that what he bought? I thought? I thought, I'm like, 1880 01:44:06,760 --> 01:44:09,240 Speaker 1: are you making fun of yourself? Like do you are 1881 01:44:09,280 --> 01:44:11,080 Speaker 1: you in on the joke? Like are you in on 1882 01:44:11,120 --> 01:44:13,920 Speaker 1: the joke? Because your whole thing is supposed to be 1883 01:44:14,040 --> 01:44:16,960 Speaker 1: like we're the party of the honest working man. That's 1884 01:44:16,960 --> 01:44:19,559 Speaker 1: who I represents. Like I've spent a lot of time 1885 01:44:19,560 --> 01:44:22,440 Speaker 1: in home depots, Like you know, I've spent a shipload 1886 01:44:22,479 --> 01:44:26,559 Speaker 1: of time. I'm not particularly handy, but people very close 1887 01:44:26,600 --> 01:44:28,200 Speaker 1: to me do that ship for a living. I've spent 1888 01:44:28,200 --> 01:44:31,720 Speaker 1: a lot of time doing runs for like like functioning 1889 01:44:31,760 --> 01:44:36,200 Speaker 1: farms and stuff. Nobody who's a serious, working class person 1890 01:44:36,240 --> 01:44:39,040 Speaker 1: who needs to go there walks out with a paper back, 1891 01:44:39,120 --> 01:44:41,160 Speaker 1: with a plastic bag and a single piece of work, 1892 01:44:41,520 --> 01:44:45,080 Speaker 1: Like you're a millionaire, buy a power tool and at 1893 01:44:45,160 --> 01:44:49,479 Speaker 1: least like try to pretend like cool, like yeah, I 1894 01:44:49,520 --> 01:44:52,000 Speaker 1: got a giant saw, Like go get a go get 1895 01:44:52,000 --> 01:44:58,840 Speaker 1: a fucking Husk Varner or something, and yeah, yeah, yeah, 1896 01:44:59,000 --> 01:45:01,559 Speaker 1: my uncle's been you in the same saw for the 1897 01:45:01,760 --> 01:45:04,280 Speaker 1: for you know, fifty years. I'm gonna buy him a 1898 01:45:04,320 --> 01:45:06,280 Speaker 1: brand new so I'm gonna go to home depot. I 1899 01:45:06,400 --> 01:45:08,040 Speaker 1: just put him. Me and my brother in law just 1900 01:45:08,040 --> 01:45:12,040 Speaker 1: put in a new sink in my office. Uh. And like, 1901 01:45:12,720 --> 01:45:15,120 Speaker 1: speaking of going to the store, I'm like, first of all, 1902 01:45:15,200 --> 01:45:19,919 Speaker 1: you're gonna go at least four times, because at least 1903 01:45:20,040 --> 01:45:22,320 Speaker 1: there's no one trip to home depot. You know what 1904 01:45:22,479 --> 01:45:25,160 Speaker 1: makes one trip like, damn, this don't work. Oh my god, 1905 01:45:25,200 --> 01:45:27,639 Speaker 1: now this is leaking. This is the wrong fucking size. 1906 01:45:27,840 --> 01:45:30,800 Speaker 1: Like you're gonna make four trips and I did, and 1907 01:45:30,840 --> 01:45:35,639 Speaker 1: I'm like putting in the sink. I'm like, I know, 1908 01:45:35,960 --> 01:45:40,120 Speaker 1: I spent just on return trips, hunts, you know what 1909 01:45:40,160 --> 01:45:42,960 Speaker 1: I'm saying. So I'm like, don't tell bro, that's so hilarious. 1910 01:45:43,800 --> 01:45:46,080 Speaker 1: It's like, there's an easy way. You've been Shapiro, right, 1911 01:45:46,200 --> 01:45:49,160 Speaker 1: Your your big thing is dying climate change. Be like 1912 01:45:49,200 --> 01:45:52,160 Speaker 1: we're saying it's not a problem. Be like, well, there's fires, 1913 01:45:52,200 --> 01:45:54,639 Speaker 1: and since I'm not a weak liberal, I'm just gonna 1914 01:45:54,800 --> 01:45:56,479 Speaker 1: fire proof my house and I'm gonna go cut down 1915 01:45:56,479 --> 01:45:58,200 Speaker 1: the tree in my yard so it can't catch, because 1916 01:45:58,200 --> 01:46:00,360 Speaker 1: that's what real conservative meant do. And then go buy 1917 01:46:00,439 --> 01:46:04,479 Speaker 1: a giant chainsaw, put it in your fucking garage, forget 1918 01:46:04,520 --> 01:46:06,400 Speaker 1: about it, and hire someone else to do the work. 1919 01:46:06,600 --> 01:46:10,080 Speaker 1: You're Ben Shapiro, You're a millionaire, Like what ye pretend? 1920 01:46:10,680 --> 01:46:15,439 Speaker 1: At least this has been a fun digression about Ben Shapiro. 1921 01:46:15,800 --> 01:46:18,439 Speaker 1: After an hour and forty minutes of talking about the 1922 01:46:18,479 --> 01:46:29,040 Speaker 1: triangle shirtwaist fire anyway politics, yea, it will see you 1923 01:46:29,200 --> 01:46:32,519 Speaker 1: pull later don't listen to Ben Shapiro. Although this episode 1924 01:46:32,560 --> 01:46:34,360 Speaker 1: is dropping the same week as the last of the 1925 01:46:34,360 --> 01:46:38,360 Speaker 1: Ben's Books episode, so I guess it fits. Fuck it 1926 01:46:38,520 --> 01:46:43,680 Speaker 1: a great plug for Thursdays. That nailed it all right, Peace, 1927 01:46:44,520 --> 01:46:45,479 Speaker 1: Oh my god.