The Triangle Factory Fire

As a onlooker to tragedy at the Triangle Factory, I am mortified. This should have NEVER happened! Everyone is trying to shrug off the blame of all these deaths but really it is all our faults. Nobody can deny that. Everyone that has ever strolled by that factory knew it wasn't safe. We knew it was jam packed with people even children and that if anything ever happened they would all be done for! But what did we do about it? Nothing. This is why I say that we need to speed of the process of change before anything like this ever happens again. We must band together and dedicate ourselves to making sure the survivors, the families of the victims and everyone else for that matter never have to feel like they are in danger at work. Children shouldn't even be working at that age. We must make buildings safer and the safety standards higher. In a positive light, this tragedy could be looked upon as a good thing. Now people know what can happen if you condone safety regulations and pack factories until no one can move. Now people know what will happen when there are inadequate fire trucks and fire escapes. Now every one has learned their lesson and now is this time to change what desperately needs to be changed.

The Triangle Factory Fire ties into the Progressive Era because it encouraged people to change the working conditions and safety of factories and work places. They wanted the government to be more involved in making safety regulations and outlawing child labor. The Fire was just one of the many catalysts of the Progressive Era.

Why Strikes Weren't Successful

The main reason Union strikes were not successful is because they were always disbanded before any real pressure was put on their employer. An example is the Pullman Strike. The employees of the Pullman luxury car factory went on strike because they wanted their wages to be increased and for there to be more freedom in their town. The Railroad Union refused to handle Pullman cars and so President Cleaveland stepped in and suppressed the strike. The workers did not get what they asked for because the government didn't allow the strikers to do anything drastic enough to coerce their employer to give in to them. A similar thing happens in the Haymarket Riot and Homestead Strike; the militia interfered in order to break up the violence and take away any power the strikers may have by implementing martial law, arresting strikers, or even shooting people. Without power, strikers were never going to be able to make their employers give into them.
Strikers also lacked power because strikes were not supported by the general public. The public viewed strikers as crazy, violent anarchists that have no morals and will do anything to get their way. Strikes always result in death and it is very possible that an innocent civilian will be harmed, so in most cases the public has no reason to support strikers.
The main way that strikers try to get their employers to increase their wages or do what ever they are fighting for, is to have all the workers in one company to stop working. This will automatically halt business and make the employer desperate to please the employees so they will come back. However, during that time, there was always lots of immigrants that would be happy to work in horrible conditions for long hours for almost no pay. This meant that it didn't matter if the strikers left for good because the employer knew there were always more people he could hire that didn't need their wages increased. Therefore, once again, the strikers had no power. An example of this occurred in the Homestead Strike when scabs replaced all strikers in the steel factory. The main reason strikers were not successful at this time was because they were unable to become more powerful that their employer.

OPVL of Wavoka's Message

This document is a written speech by Wovoka, who was the official prophet of the Cheyanne tribe of Native Americans shortly before the Battle of Little Big Horn. It was translated by James Mooney in 1896. This speech was delivered to all of the tribe members to deliver what he has learned from God. He says the tribe members must perform a 'Ghost Dance' so that there will be abundant precipitation. He also warns to not be aggressive towards the Whites and to not cause any conflict, whether intentionally or not. He wants to motivate his tribe saying that karma exists and that the Whites will eventually pay for all the harm they have caused. Wavoka is obviously religious and wants his people to only do good. At the time he made his speech there was a shortage of rain and food and so he wanted to make his people feel like they could be of use and help bring rain. By Wavoka basically saying 'Don't be sad when your friends are killed; don't seek revenge.'He is insisting that the whole Indian War is caused by the Whites. The limitations of this documents is that Wavoka speaks as if he is God. He is obviously not so the promises and predictions he makes tell that he really has no idea if they are true and therefore cannot be seen as fact.