Flesh & Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy in Mock Newbery 2026

May 28, 2011 Wendy rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-award-possibilities

When I first heard about this book, I wondered how bad it was that I was skeptical about this story being written by a man. It's sexist of me, but I feel like... this one is ours, you know?

But I still think I approached it with a mostly open mind. How much is self-fulfilling prophecy? This is probably the driest version of the story I've ever read, and it felt like the author almost took pains at every step to remind the reader that a few of the victims were men. Pages and pages were spent on po ...more

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Apr 10, 2011 carissa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: teen-reads, teen-nonfiction

"On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City burst into flames. The factory was crowded. The doors were locked to ensure workers stay inside. One hundred forty-six people—mostly women—perished; it was one of the most lethal workplace fires in American history until September 11, 2001.

But the story of the fire is not the story of one accidental moment in time. It is a story of immigration and hard work to make it in a new country, as Italians and Jews and others traveled t ...more

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Oct 10, 2011 Dest rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, new-york

I don't know what to say about this, except I wasn't very impressed by it and I don't understand why it's on the shortlist for the National Book Award. I did learn a lot from it, but I didn't find the writing especially compelling. I also thought the title was misleading, as this isn't a book about the Triangle Fire so much as a book about immigration, labor rights, workplace safety, and the garment industry. I realize that those issues surround the Triangle Fire and it's necessary to talk about ...more

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Oct 13, 2011 Whitney rated it really liked it

Well done. I've taught the Triangle Fire along with Immigration for years, but this book does an excellent job of really showing the connection. Not only does it analyze the connection to Immigration, but to the Women's Right's movements as well. It also does a good job of showing the true purposes of unions. With all the hubub of unions going around these days, it was great to analyze why they started. It also made me think about government corruption. We so often hear how corrupt our society i ...more

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Dec 08, 2011 Jess rated it really liked it

Shelves: young-adult, non-fiction, juv, history, national-book-award-finalist, mock-newbery-2012

I read this one in two sittings, a week or two apart. Once you pick it up, it's an aborbing read as much for as its horrors as its way of making history come alive. But it's not exactly cheerful reading for a lunch break, so it sat around my living room for a while before getting picked up again.

I'd argue that the story isn't as much about the Triangle Fire as it is about social conditions that led up to the fire and reforms attempted in the aftermath of the fire. The horrifying events of the fi I read this one in two sittings, a week or two apart. Once you pick it up, it's an aborbing read as much for as its horrors as its way of making history come alive. But it's not exactly cheerful reading for a lunch break, so it sat around my living room for a while before getting picked up again.

I'd argue that the story isn't as much about the Triangle Fire as it is about social conditions that led up to the fire and reforms attempted in the aftermath of the fire. The horrifying events of the fire really only take up about a chapter - it was a quick and deadly.

But to explain how something like this happens, Marrin takes us back through history to set up the day of the fire. He talks about why so many southern Italians and Eastern European Jews came to New York at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, why they worked the jobs they did, and how they lived. He describes changes in the manufacture of clothing, the advent of new technologies and changes in fashion that led to tenement-based sweatshops and later larger operations like the Triangle Waist Factory.

Having set the scene for why there were so many young women working long hours in these factories, he layers in issues like workplace safety - the practice of locking-in workers to deterr late-comers and prevent workers from leaving, the fact that fire-prevention devices had been invented (like overhead sprinklers) but that factory owners weren't required to use them. In fact, it was more cost-effective to let buildings burn (and the workers in them - there were always more willing to take the jobs) and collect insurance than to take pains to prevent fires. The scene is also set with an account of the garment workers' strike prior to the fire

Following the fire, Marrin takes us through changes in politics and policies in New York related to the garment industry - some of the immediate aftermath shows the changes brought about by the fire, but the further we get into the 20th century, the less the information seems relevant to the fire (particularly the discussion of organized crime). The final chapter briefly covers how our clothes are made today and the fact that Triangle-like conditions still exist in sweatshops.

These present-day accounts are a chilling footnote to the story, but here Marrin's tone becomes a bit more opinionated, rather than letting the facts speak for themselves. Throughout the book, in fact, he's prone to a rather grandiose tone that frequently took me out of the story. The facts he presents are gripping enough without the use of over-wrought language.

Audience is a tricky question for this one - I would say middle school and high school, depending on the reader's comfort level with occasionally gruesome descriptions. Because the book is so chock-full of different pieces of history, it could be useful to kids researching anything from immigration to working conditions to women's rights, or for readers interested in the context of the fire.

...more

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Nov 07, 2011 Ellen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: adultbooks, youngadultbooks, nonfiction, social-problems, diversity

Do not expect the primary focus of this book to be the actual Triangle Fire. This incident is the centerpiece of a well-researched social history of the mistreatment of factory and sweatshop workers (especially women) in the early 20th century. There are fascinating portraits of the people who challenged the status quo and fought for fair labor laws. These ranged from wealthy society women to politicians to factory workers. I do not read much nonfiction, because it usually seems dry to me. I fel ...more

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Jan 05, 2012 Deanna rated it really liked it

Shelves: juvenile-non-fiction, 2011

I got a lot more than I bargained for in this book. It starts at the beginning and explains the conditions that caused immigrants to leave Europe for America and what life was like for them once they arrived. Primarily Jewish and Italian young women were the victims of this horrible tragedy and their story of how they came to work there helps us to understand the impact this tragedy had on labor and workplace changes.
Interesting and descriptive, but maybe a little too detailed and "text-booky" ...more

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