OBITUARIES / Rose Freedman, Last Survivor of Famous 1911 NYC Fire

Los Angeles-Rose Freedman, the last survivor of the 1911 Triangle

Shirtwaist Co. fire in New York City that claimed ' lives and raised a nation's

consciousness about workplace safety, died Thursday at her home in Beverly

Hills. She was 107.

Freedman was born in Vienna in 1893. At 15 she immigrated to America and

became one of more than 500 young women-mostly 16- to 23-year-old Italian and

Jewish immigrants-who found work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co., which made a

popular style of women's dresses. She was 18 and was hired to stitch buttons.

The going wage was $3 for a six-day week.

Freedman was at work on Saturday, March 25, 1911, when a fire alarm sounded

at 4:43 p.m in the factory, which occupied the 10-story Asch Building off

Washington Square in lower Manhattan.

Workers surged to the fire doors, but they were bolted to prevent the women

from taking breaks or stealing. The factory had one fire escape, but when

women piled on, it collapsed, plunging its occupants to the pavement nine

stories below.

Within minutes, the fire bounded to the ninth floor, where Freedman worked.

Freedman pulled her dress over her head and rushed to the roof.

Firefighters hoisted her to the top of the adjacent building. She was

exhausted, her face was charred, and her eyebrows were singed, but she made it

down several flights of stairs.

Horror followed the revelations of conditions inside the building: the

locked doors, poor sanitation, crowding and the employers' disregard for the

simplest precautions, such as a fire drill. Public outrage intensified with the

acquittals on manslaughter charges of the Triangle owners, Isaac Harris and

Max Blanck.

Widowed in 1952, Freedman went to business school and at age 59 went to

work for the Mark Cross pen company in New York. When she was 64, she left for

a job at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., but lied about her age. She

retired at age 79. She moved to Los Angeles when she was in her 90s.