Disco Demolition in Chicago: This Date in History

[grimes70]

When we moved to Buncombe County 12-13 years ago my 5 year-old daughter was very pleased to see the name of our closest grocery store — INGLES. You see, she had been pretty immersed in Spanish since birth, thanks to Spanish for Fun Academy in Chapel Hill, then a kindergarten immersion program at Jones Elementary School in Greensboro, and seeing that name on the sign — which she read as Inglés and to her signified the Spanish word for English — was a comfortable message in a brand new place. I still often pronounce it as ENGLAYS to myself just for the fun of it.

#OTD in 1963 Robert Ingle opened his first supermarket on Hendersonville Road in Asheville. There are a lot of them now and they are all over the Southeast.

Used ro be an Ingle's on Merriman I'd stop at on way to,Mad Cty as the one on the Marshall by-pass was fairly grungy and no beer. Now there's the new suoer one at the 70 split at Weaverville.

 

[donbosco]

There are actually two in WVL - a grungy one and an uber one. WVL is growing up - I’m sitting in Blue Mountain Pizza having a Gaelic Ale as I write this — waiting for a take out Chicken Alfredo.

 

[05C40]

When we moved to Buncombe County 12-13 years ago my 5 year-old daughter was very pleased to see the name of our closest grocery store — INGLES. You see, she had been pretty immersed in Spanish since birth, thanks to Spanish for Fun Academy in Chapel Hill, then a kindergarten immersion program at Jones Elementary School in Greensboro, and seeing that name on the sign — which she read as Inglés and to her signified the Spanish word for English — was a comfortable message in a brand new place. I still often pronounce it as ENGLAYS to myself just for the fun of it.

#OTD in 1963 Robert Ingle opened his first supermarket on Hendersonville Road in Asheville. There are a lot of them now and they are all over the Southeast.

I used to always pull over at Ingles because it was one if the very few places where I could buy TruAde (at all) or Blenheim Ginger Ale (at a reasonable price.)

 

[grimes70]

There are actually two in WVL - a grungy one and an uber one. WVL is growing up - I’m sitting in Blue Mountain Pizza having a Gaelic Ale as I write this — waiting for a take out Chicken Alfredo.

Yes. Ingles's grew up like most the big boys and started carrying better and high priced goods.

 

[05C40]

Yes. Ingles's grew up like most the big boys and started carrying better and high priced goods.

I agree. But also, attempting to go head-to-head with places like Food Lion, Publix, and Harris Teeter on location, price, and inventory would be a losing strategy for Ingles. The better strategy is to focus on essentials, niche/vintage/local products, and locations the "big boys" think are too rural. Ingles seems to be following a strategy of avoiding going head-to-head with larger chains. When Publix announced plans for Charlotte, Ingles sold all its locations to Harris Teeter. HT converted some of them to grocery stores and others were rented out to places like exercise and furniture franchises that need a large floor area.

 

[grimes70]

I don't know about you but this is kind of a big deal for me. Would there be blue cups without it? [NOTE: In all my years at He's Not, I never had a blue cup. Long neck Bud's? Too many to comtemplate.]

On March 22, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Beer and Wine Revenue Act. This law levies a federal tax on all alcoholic beverages to raise revenue for the federal government and gives individual states the option to further regulate the sale and distribution of beer and wine.

With the passage of the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act in 1919, temperance advocates in the U.S. finally achieved their long sought-after goal of prohibiting the sale of alcohol or “spirits.” Together, the new laws prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of liquor and ushered in the era known as “Prohibition,” defining an alcoholic beverage as anything containing over 0.5 percent alcohol by volume. President Woodrow Wilson had unsuccessfully tried to veto the Volstead Act, which set harsh punishments for violating the 18th Amendment and endowed the Internal Revenue Service with unprecedented regulatory and enforcement powers. In the end, Prohibition proved difficult and expensive to enforce and actually increased illegal trafficking without cutting down on consumption. In one of his first addresses to Congress as president, FDR announced his intention to modify the Volstead Act with the Beer and Wine Revenue Act.

No fan of temperance himself, FDR had developed a taste for alcohol when he attended New York cocktail parties as a budding politician. (While president, FDR refused to fire his favorite personal valet for repeated drunkenness on the job.) FDR considered the new law “of the highest importance” for its potential to generate much-needed federal funds and included it in a sweeping set of New Deal policies designed to vault the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression.

The Beer and Wine Revenue act was followed, in December 1933, by the passage of the 21st Amendment, which officially ended Prohibition.

Beer bottle - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[donbosco]

This is an unforgettable sound-one of a different time & place-of the Textile Mill & the first blush of commodity capitalism, robber barons, & labor exploited & resisting. #OTD in 1892 (d. 1931) Banjo genius Charlie Poole was born in Randolph County (as a child his family moved to Spray, now Eden in Rockingham). His 3-finger style & carousing made him legend with his band the North Carolina Ramblers. Textile Workers were his people & he died young (before 40) living that hard life. He made some of the 1st Country Records. Ramble On, Charlie Poole Listen to his unique high-pitched voice & picking on “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down.”

 

[donbosco]

I don't know about you but this is kind of a big deal for me. Would there be blue cups without it? [NOTE: In all my years at He's Not, I never had a blue cup. Long neck Bud's? Too many to comtemplate.]

On March 22, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Beer and Wine Revenue Act. This law levies a federal tax on all alcoholic beverages to raise revenue for the federal government and gives individual states the option to further regulate the sale and distribution of beer and wine.

With the passage of the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act in 1919, temperance advocates in the U.S. finally achieved their long sought-after goal of prohibiting the sale of alcohol or “spirits.” Together, the new laws prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of liquor and ushered in the era known as “Prohibition,” defining an alcoholic beverage as anything containing over 0.5 percent alcohol by volume. President Woodrow Wilson had unsuccessfully tried to veto the Volstead Act, which set harsh punishments for violating the 18th Amendment and endowed the Internal Revenue Service with unprecedented regulatory and enforcement powers. In the end, Prohibition proved difficult and expensive to enforce and actually increased illegal trafficking without cutting down on consumption. In one of his first addresses to Congress as president, FDR announced his intention to modify the Volstead Act with the Beer and Wine Revenue Act.

No fan of temperance himself, FDR had developed a taste for alcohol when he attended New York cocktail parties as a budding politician. (While president, FDR refused to fire his favorite personal valet for repeated drunkenness on the job.) FDR considered the new law “of the highest importance” for its potential to generate much-needed federal funds and included it in a sweeping set of New Deal policies designed to vault the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression.

The Beer and Wine Revenue act was followed, in December 1933, by the passage of the 21st Amendment, which officially ended Prohibition.

Beer bottle - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I remember quite vividly walking into He’s Not Here to see an absolute giant standing at the bar, his Afro scraping the popcorn ceiling and a Blue Cup in his hand looking more like a Dixie Cup.

Geoff Crompton could do that…

 

[Patb78]

I remember quite vividly walking into He’s Not Here to see an absolute giant standing at the bar, his Afro scraping the popcorn ceiling and a Blue Cup in his hand looking more like a Dixie Cup.

Geoff Crompton could do that…

I went to high school with Geff (he was always changing the spelling). He was big in high school. He was 6-10 and weighed around 270. He got to Carolina and his weight ballooned to well over 300. He was 45-46 when he died. He never was really in to basketball. Said he played in large part because everyone expected him to because of his size.

 

[grimes70]

I remember quite vividly walking into He’s Not Here to see an absolute giant standing at the bar, his Afro scraping the popcorn ceiling and a Blue Cup in his hand looking more like a Dixie Cup.

Geoff Crompton could do that…

The Gentle Giant

True story. One summer I was regularly playing pick-up in Woolen. When campers came the Heels came over to play. Somehow I, as a regular, got chosen to play against them. Sweet D, Phil, etc. And Crompton. After going up for a rebound I was knocked to the floor with a busted lip from Geoff's elbow. And no he was not skying, lol. He freaked and was so concernd. Took a bit to stop the flow but no harm no foul.

From then on whenever I saw him at He's Not he'd smile, low 5 me and I'd buy him a beer. Yes, I'd buy as he never had much. Always a smile on his face.

Dean tried so hard to get him to work to his potential but it was just not in him. Dean loved the man still.

The coda. What I consider my greatest athletic accomplishment. Made a nice cross-over move and knocked down a 15 footer over Walter. He never let me get free from then on.

 

[Zoo_View]

I remember quite vividly walking into He’s Not Here to see an absolute giant standing at the bar, his Afro scraping the popcorn ceiling and a Blue Cup in his hand looking more like a Dixie Cup.

Geoff could do that…

I remember a quiet afternoon in He’s Not…..we were outside at a table….I went up to get beers.

The door was propped open….All of a sudden, the light coming inside disappeared…..I turned around to see why some asshole had closed the door…..no one had. It was just Geoff standing in the doorway. He filled it.

Wasn’t Geoff in Phil Ford’s class? I remember his freshman season…..Coach Smith saying not much aside from “Geoff has a lot of work to do to help us this year.”

Rumors were rampant that Geoff liked heading home for Momma’s home cooking. He was from Burlington, IIRC. Likely could have been in He’s Not.

As a SO, I remember Coach Smith saying, “If Geoff can get to 300 lbs., he can help us.”

I think that went up to 315 as a JR and SR. Great hands. Soft touch. Agile.

If he’d had Brad Daugherty’s work ethic, Geoff would be in the Hall of Fame.

 

[Patb78]

I remember a quiet afternoon in He’s Not…..we were outside at a table….I went up to get beers.

The door was propped open….All of a sudden, the light coming inside disappeared…..I turned around to see why some asshole had closed the door…..no one had. It was just Geoff standing in the doorway. He filled it.

Wasn’t Geoff in Phil Ford’s class? I remember his freshman season…..Coach Smith saying not much aside from “Geoff has a lot of work to do to help us this year.”

Rumors were rampant that Geoff liked heading home for Momma’s home cooking. He was from Burlington, IIRC. Likely could have been in He’s Not.

As a SO, I remember Coach Smith saying, “If Geoff can get to 300 lbs., he can help us.”

I think that went up to 315 as a JR and SR. Great hands. Soft touch. Agile.

If he’d had Brad Daugherty’s work ethic, Geoff would be in the Hall of Fame.

Geff was a class ahead of Phil. He redshirted one year so they graduated from Carolina at the same time. As for his weight, he went over 315. I can remember in high school opposing centers being totally unable to stop him. He was 6-10 and 270. Most of the centers he faced were 6-2 to 6-5 and weighed a 100 pounds less than he did. They would foul him but most of the time it wasn’t called because it had no effect on him. Geff had a smooth shooting motion. He still holds the Burlington Williams record for field goals in a season and single season and career rebounding records. His jersey is the only basketball jersey retired at Williams. In our junior season we went to the 4-A state championship game. We lost by 2 points to a South Mecklenburg team led by Walter Davis. If Geff could have controlled his eating and drinking, he could have been a solid contributor off the bench.

 

[grimes70]

How soon we forget.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a major environmental disaster that occurred in Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. The spill occurred when Exxon Valdez, an oil supertanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company, bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef, 6 mi (9.7 km) west of Tatitlek, Alaska at 12:04 a.m. The tanker spilled more than 10 million US gallons (240,000 bbl) (or 37,000 tonnes)[1] of crude oil over the next few days.[2]



The Exxon Valdez spill is the second largest in U.S. waters, after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in terms of volume of oil released.[3][4] Prince William Sound's remote location, accessible only by helicopter, plane, or boat, made government and industry response efforts difficult and made existing response plans especially hard to implement. The region is a habitat for salmon, sea otters, seals, and seabirds. The oil, extracted from the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field, eventually affected 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of coastline, of which 200 miles (320 km) were heavily or moderately oiled.[2][5

 

[05C40]

How soon we forget.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a major environmental disaster that occurred in Alaska's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. The spill occurred when Exxon Valdez, an oil supertanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company, bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef, 6 mi (9.7 km) west of Tatitlek, Alaska at 12:04 a.m. The tanker spilled more than 10 million US gallons (240,000 bbl) (or 37,000 tonnes)[1] of crude oil over the next few days.[2]



The Exxon Valdez spill is the second largest in U.S. waters, after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in terms of volume of oil released.[3][4] Prince William Sound's remote location, accessible only by helicopter, plane, or boat, made government and industry response efforts difficult and made existing response plans especially hard to implement. The region is a habitat for salmon, sea otters, seals, and seabirds. The oil, extracted from the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field, eventually affected 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of coastline, of which 200 miles (320 km) were heavily or moderately oiled.[2][5

I've read that less than 10% of the oil spilled was removed from Prince William Sound. And I bet Exxon was slapping itself on the back for almost hitting double figures in the recovery efforts. I did better at saving for retirement than Exxon did at cleaning up their mistake. I am not the standard that Exxon should have aspired to match.

 

[grimes70]

Triangle shirtwaist factory fire, fatal conflagration that occurred on the evening of March 25, 1911, in a New York City sweatshop, touching off a national movement in the United States for safer working conditions.

The fire—likely sparked by a discarded cigarette—started on the eighth floor of the Asch Building, 23–29 Washington Place, just east of Washington Square Park. That floor and the two floors above were occupied by the Triangle Waist Company, a manufacturer of women’s shirtwaists (blouses) that employed approximately 500 people. The flames, fed by copious cotton and paper waste, quickly spread upward to the top two floors of the building. Fire truck ladders were only able to reach six stories, and the building’s overloaded fire escape collapsed. Many workers, trapped by doors that had been locked to prevent theft, leapt from windows to their deaths.



The 129 women and 17 men who perished in the 18-minute conflagration were mostly young European immigrants. It took several days for family members to identify the victims, many of whom were burned beyond recognition. Six of the victims, all interred under a monument in a New York City cemetery, were not identified until 2011 through research conducted by an amateur genealogist. A citywide outpouring of grief culminated on April 5, 1911, in a 100,000-strong procession behind the hearses that carried the dead along Fifth Avenue; thousands more observed the memorial gathering.

Though the owners of the factory were indicted later that month on charges of manslaughter, they were acquitted in December 1911; the owners ultimately profited from inflated insurance claims that they submitted after the tragedy. However, the uproar generated by the disaster led to the creation of the Factory Investigating Commission by the New York state legislature in June. Over the following year and a half, members of the commission visited factories, interviewed workers, and held public hearings. The commission’s findings ultimately led to the passage of more than 30 health and safety laws, including factory fire codes and child labour restrictions, and helped shape future labour laws across the country.

power im the union at DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.

duckduckgo.com

 

[Patb78]

I've read that less than 10% of the oil spilled was removed from Prince William Sound. And I bet Exxon was slapping itself on the back for almost hitting double figures in the recovery efforts. I did better at saving for retirement than Exxon did at cleaning up their mistake. I am not the standard that Exxon should have aspired to match.

Accidents happen. But what infuriated me was the unwillingness to clean the mess up. That is why, to this day, I will not buy gas at an Exxon station.

 

[donbosco]

I wrote this upon the passing of Dr. John Hope Franklin in 2009. It was printed in ‘The Carrboro Citizen.’



“The open mind of John Hope Franklin.” The life of John Hope Franklin has now been celebrated, as it should, in publications across the world. Adding substantively to those august acknowledgments and outpourings of genuine affection is beyond this commentary. Still, Dr. Franklin did touch my life as historian and as activist.



Dr. Franklin’s work informs my classroom in many ways. In teaching courses on the history of the American South, I loan out my copy of ‘The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790-1860’ pretty much every semester. This semester, an adult student, an African-American woman born in Alabama into a family of sharecroppers, has it and is applying it to research she is doing for a final paper. She had first heard of Dr. Franklin in a video we viewed, ‘Dr. Frank: The Life and Times of Frank Porter Graham’ as he spoke of how Graham had never worried about how people might view his associations, instead seeking out diverse ways of seeing in order to further deepen his own. Dr. Franklin appears in the video a tall and formal man carefully choosing his words so as to most precisely portray the life of the man in question. Graham (most known for being president of #UNC 1930-1949) took much heat over his associations but never let that stop him from seeking the exchange of ideas and the concomitant progress they might bring to bear on the world.



I met Dr. Franklin through Sam Reed. Sam was Ukraine-born, a tireless worker for equal rights and a communist. At the age of 80, Sam founded the newsletter “The Trumpet of Conscience” and in his retirement here in (Durham) North Carolina worked tirelessly to bridge racial divides. Scholars like William Chafe, James David Barber, and Dr. Franklin were persuaded and cajoled by Sam Reed to write for “The Trumpet.” In 1995, I worked on various projects sponsored by Sam and the publication. When Dr. Franklin spoke at the 10th anniversary of Sam’s publication in 1996, he referred to himself as a “Friend of The Trumpet.” He was also a friend of Sam Reed’s and much in the spirit of Frank Porter Graham, John Hope Franklin also sought associations that others might shun. After all, Sam was a known communist who had, during the days of the most stringent McCarthyism, served time for expressing himself in ways unpopular to the powers that be.



Dr. Franklin’s life was also one of articulating ideas unpopular with those that run society. That was, in fact, the essence of his history. And Dr. Franklin’s research was deep and full, impeccably documented and unassailable as to his interpretation of sources, assuring that his work could never be successfully attacked on grounds of scholarship. Historical actors that challenge the prevailing thought assail hegemony. We can all take a great cue from Dr. Franklin in both remaining open to radical voices and minding our own pronouncements for their accuracy. Positive change needs such scholars and thinkers and hard workers as Dr. Franklin, Sam Reed, and Frank Porter Graham. That to me is the inspiration of Dr. Franklin. [End 2009 Article]



In 2021 I added the following (edited slightly in 2023)…

I think that homage holds up relatively well. I still find that trio of scholar-activists admirable and worthy of emulation.



UNC has had a rough row to hoe in the years since 2009, most recently over the badly bungled mis-hiring of journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. Geeta N. Kapur has written about the university and race in, "To Drink from the Well: The Struggle for Racial Equality at the Nation's Oldest Public University.” In a July 7, 2021 article in “Facing South” online magazine she recounted the following about Frank Porter Graham: “In a keynote speech he delivered to an integrated audience of 1,500 people in Birmingham, Alabama in 1938 at the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, an organization committed to improving social justice, civil rights, and instituting electoral reforms to repeal the poll tax in the South, President Graham said, ‘The black man is the primary test of American democracy and Christianity.’



President Graham was also a fierce defender of academic freedom. In his inauguration speech on Nov. 11, 1931, he told us: “Along with culture and democracy, must go freedom. Without freedom there can be neither true culture nor real democracy. Without freedom there can be no university. Freedom in a university runs a various course and has a wide meaning. In the university should be found the free voice not only for the unvoiced millions but also for the unpopular and even the hated minorities. Its platform should never be an agency of partisan propaganda but should ever be a fair forum of free opinion.”.� https://www.facingsouth.org/.../voices-uncs-troubled...



Historical context is important. In its fullest realization it can liberate. It can also, if manipulated or half-recognized give cover where none is due. John Hope Franklin, Frank Porter Graham, and Sam Reed were born, respectively, in 1915, 1886, and 1906. They each saw clearly the wrongness in both the racism rampant during their lives and in the half-remembering of it, proving that clear vision for the generations that went before us was, indeed, possible, albeit perhaps rarer than it should have been.



[Added 2024] Of late the assault on Dr. Graham’s ‘Free Voice in The University’ as political forces gather mandates on What may be taught and How. Florida serves as a Model it appears and men and women grasping the levers of power and clutching purse strings in North Carolina want no more discussion of ideas unpopular to them. My Deddy said “The hit dog always yells,” and the truth of past and present threaten to strike them squarely. They and their lackeys betray themselves. It seems that they could not care less. They don’t respect the work lives of the Franklins, Grahams, or Reeds of our past and would rather erase them. The battle is on. Holding actions look like stalemates but consider the alternative.



[Added 2025] Updating this message to note that at this time the North Carolina General Assembly is in deep consideration of the passage of the NC REACH Act (So dangerously fully titled as ‘Reclaiming College Education on America’s Constitutional Heritage’) — it having gone to the Senate Committee on Rules and Operations on March 17 — This bill which would control the testing, weight of grading, and the nature of the way material related to the Foundations of American Democracy, a program already mandated by the legislature through the UNC System Board of Governors, will be studied while requiring copies of course syllabi at each of the 17 campuses of the UNC system and the Community Colleges. You can read the bill here: https://webservices.ncleg.gov/ViewBillDocument/2025/1704/0/DRS45133-MT-7A I have no doubt that Dr. Graham would have been in Raleigh fighting this breach of Academic Freedom tooth and nail. Dr. Franklin would have joined him.



On September 22, 1947 John Hope Franklin (1915-2009) published ‘From Slavery to Freedom,’ the formative survey text even today in AFAM History. This link from the NC Department of Cultural Resources celebrates that historical work. https://www.ncdcr.gov/.../scholaractivist-john-hope...



Dr. Franklin was the President of the #OAH, #AHA, & #SHA and spent most of his career in N.C., finishing at #Duke. The John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies is located there. He passed away on March 25, 2009. He was 94 years old. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995. John Hope Franklin passed on at the age of 94 on March 25, 2009.

 

[grimes70]

Going go be a long hard slog turning congress and state houses purple let alone blue.

1812 In opposition to the redrawing of districts to favour incumbents in an upcoming election, the Boston Gazette published a satiric cartoon that graphically transformed the districts into a fabulous animal, “The Gerry-mander”; the term gerrymander thus entered the American lexicon.

gerrymandering, in U.S. politics, the practice of drawing the boundaries of electoral districts in a way that gives one political party an unfair advantage over its rivals (political or partisan gerrymandering) or that dilutes the voting power of members of ethnic or linguistic minority groups (racial gerrymandering). The term is derived from the name of Gov. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, whose administration enacted a law in 1812 defining new state senatorial districts. The law consolidated the Federalist Party vote in a few districts and thus gave disproportionate representation to Democratic-Republicans. The outline of one of these districts was thought to resemble a salamander. A satirical cartoon by Elkanah Tisdale that appeared in the Boston Gazette graphically transformed the districts into a fabulous animal, “The Gerry-mander,” fixing the term in the popular imagination.



A basic objection to gerrymandering of any kind is that it tends to violate two tenets of electoral apportionment—compactness and equality of size of constituencies. The constitutional significance of the latter principle was set forth in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued in 1962, Baker v. Carr, in which the Court held that the failure of the legislature of Tennessee to reapportion state legislative districts to take into account significant changes in district populations had effectively reduced the weight of votes cast in more populous districts, amounting to a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1963, in Gray v. Sanders, the Court first articulated the principle of “one person, one vote” in striking down Georgia’s county-based system for counting votes in Democratic primary elections for the office of U.S. senator. One year later, in Wesberry v. Sanders, the Court declared that congressional electoral districts must be drawn in such a way that, “as nearly as is practicable, one man’s vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s.” And in the same year, the Court affirmed, in Reynolds v. Sims, that “the Equal Protection Clause requires that the seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned on a population basis.”

 

[donbosco]

Heather Cox Richardson's message for today looks back on the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire:

"March 25, 2025 (Tuesday)
On March 25, 1911, Frances Perkins was visiting with a friend who lived near Washington Square in New York City when they heard fire engines and screams. They rushed out to the street to see what the trouble was. A fire had broken out in a garment factory on the upper floors of a building on Washington Square, and the blaze ripped through the lint in the air. The only way out was down the elevator, which had been abandoned at the base of its shaft, or through an exit to the roof. But the factory owner had locked the roof exit that day because, he later testified, he was worried some of his workers might steal some of the blouses they were making.

“The people had just begun to jump when we got there,” Perkins later recalled. “They had been holding until that time, standing in the windowsills, being crowded by others behind them, the fire pressing closer and closer, the smoke closer and closer. Finally the men were trying to get out this thing that the firemen carry with them, a net to catch people if they do jump, the[y] were trying to get that out and they couldn’t wait any longer. They began to jump. The…weight of the bodies was so great, at the speed at which they were traveling that they broke through the net. Every one of them was killed, everybody who jumped was killed. It was a horrifying spectacle.”
By the time the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was out, 147 young people were dead, either from their fall from the factory windows or from smoke inhalation.

Perkins had few illusions about industrial America: she had worked in a settlement house in an impoverished immigrant neighborhood in Chicago and was the head of the New York office of the National Consumers League, urging consumers to use their buying power to demand better conditions and wages for workers. But even she was shocked by the scene she witnessed on March 25.

By the next day, New Yorkers were gathering to talk about what had happened on their watch. “I can't begin to tell you how disturbed the people were everywhere,” Perkins said. “It was as though we had all done something wrong. It shouldn't have been. We were sorry…. We didn't want it that way. We hadn’t intended to have 147 girls and boys killed in a factory. It was a terrible thing for the people of the City of New York and the State of New York to face.”

The Democratic majority leader in the New York legislature, Al Smith—who would a few years later go on to four terms as New York governor and become the Democratic presidential nominee in 1928—went to visit the families of the dead to express his sympathy and his grief. “It was a human, decent, natural thing to do,” Perkins said, “and it was a sight he never forgot. It burned it into his mind. He also got to the morgue, I remember, at just the time when the survivors were being allowed to sort out the dead and see who was theirs and who could be recognized. He went along with a number of others to the morgue to support and help, you know, the old father or the sorrowing sister, do her terrible picking out.”

“This was the kind of shock that we all had,” Perkins remembered.

The next Sunday, concerned New Yorkers met at the Metropolitan Opera House with the conviction that “something must be done. We've got to turn this into some kind of victory, some kind of constructive action….” One man contributed $25,000 to fund citizens’ action to “make sure that this kind of thing can never happen again.”

The gathering appointed a committee, which asked the legislature to create a bipartisan commission to figure out how to improve fire safety in factories. For four years, Frances Perkins was their chief investigator.

She later explained that although their mission was to stop factory fires, “we went on and kept expanding the function of the commission 'till it came to be the report on sanitary conditions and to provide for their removal and to report all kinds of unsafe conditions and then to report all kinds of human conditions that were unfavorable to the employees, including long hours, including low wages, including the labor of children, including the overwork of women, including homework put out by the factories to be taken home by the women. It included almost everything you could think of that had been in agitation for years. We were authorized to investigate and report and recommend action on all these subjects.”

And they did. Al Smith was the speaker of the house when they published their report, and soon would become governor. Much of what the commission recommended became law.

Perkins later mused that perhaps the new legislation to protect workers had in some way paid the debt society owed to the young people who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. “The extent to which this legislation in New York marked a change in American political attitudes and policies toward social responsibility can scarcely be overrated,” she said. “It was, I am convinced, a turning point.”

But she was not done. In 1919, over the fervent objections of men, Governor Smith appointed Perkins to the New York State Industrial Commission to help weed out the corruption that was weakening the new laws. She continued to be one of his closest advisers on labor issues. In 1929, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt replaced Smith as New York governor, he appointed Perkins to oversee the state’s labor department as the Depression worsened. When President Herbert Hoover claimed that unemployment was ending, Perkins made national news when she repeatedly called him out with figures proving the opposite and said his “misleading statements” were “cruel and irresponsible.” She began to work with leaders from other states to figure out how to protect workers and promote employment by working together.

In 1933, after the people had rejected Hoover’s plan to let the Depression burn itself out, President-elect Roosevelt asked Perkins to serve as Secretary of Labor in his administration. She accepted only on the condition that he back her goals: unemployment insurance, health insurance, old-age insurance, a 40-hour work week, a minimum wage, and abolition of child labor. She later recalled: “I remember he looked so startled, and he said, ‘Well, do you think it can be done?’”

She promised to find out.

Once in office, Perkins was a driving force behind the administration’s massive investment in public works projects to get people back to work. She urged the government to spend $3.3 billion on schools, roads, housing, and post offices. Those projects employed more than a million people in 1934.

In 1935, FDR signed the Social Security Act, providing ordinary Americans with unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services.

In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a minimum wage and maximum hours. It banned child labor.
Frances Perkins, and all those who worked with her, transformed the horror of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire into the heart of our nation’s basic social safety net.

'There is always a large horizon…. There is much to be done,” Perkins said. “It is up to you to contribute some small part to a program of human betterment for all time.'"

 

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1915 American domestic Mary Mallon, better known as Typhoid Mary, was placed under a quarantine on North Brother Island, New York City, that lasted until her death in 1938; a typhoid carrier, she was allegedly responsible for multiple outbreaks of typhoid fever.

Mary Mallon immigrated to the United States in 1883 and subsequently made her living as a domestic servant, most often as a cook. It is not clear when she became a carrier of the typhoid bacterium (Salmonella typhi). However, from 1900 to 1907 nearly two dozen people fell ill with typhoid fever in households in New York City and Long Island where Mallon worked. The illnesses often occurred shortly after she began working in each household, but, by the time the disease was traced to its source in a household where she had recently been employed, Mallon had disappeared.

Typhoid Mary (born September 23, 1869, Cookstown, County Tyrone, Ireland—died November 11, 1938, North Brother Island, Bronx, New York, U.S.) was an infamous typhoid carrier who allegedly gave rise to multiple outbreaks of typhoid fever.

Mary Mallon immigrated to the United States in 1883 and subsequently made her living as a domestic servant, most often as a cook. It is not clear when she became a carrier of the typhoid bacterium (Salmonella typhi). However, from 1900 to 1907 nearly two dozen people fell ill with typhoid fever in households in New York City and Long Island where Mallon worked. The illnesses often occurred shortly after she began working in each household, but, by the time the disease was traced to its source in a household where she had recently been employed, Mallon had disappeared.


Typhoid Mary Mary Mallon (left), known as Typhoid Mary, in quarantine on North Brother Island, New York City, early 20th century.

In 1906, after 6 people in a household of 11 where Mallon had worked in Oyster Bay, New York, became sick with typhoid, the home’s owners hired New York City Department of Health sanitary engineer George Soper, whose specialty was studying typhoid fever epidemics, to investigate the outbreak. Other investigators were brought in as well and concluded that the outbreak likely had been caused by contaminated water. Mallon continued to work as a cook, moving from household to household until 1907, when she resurfaced working in a Park Avenue home in Manhattan. The winter of that year, following an outbreak in the Manhattan household that involved a death from the disease, Soper met with Mallon. He subsequently linked all 22 cases of typhoid fever that had been recorded in New York City and the Long Island area to her.

Again Mallon fled, but authorities led by Soper finally overtook her and had her committed to an isolation centre on North Brother Island, part of the Bronx, New York. There she stayed, despite an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, until 1910, when the health department released her on condition that she never again accept employment that involved the handling of food.

Four years later Soper began looking for Mallon again when an epidemic broke out at a sanatorium in Newfoundland, New Jersey, and at Sloane Maternity Hospital in Manhattan; she had worked as a cook at both places. Mallon was at last found in a suburban home in Westchester county, New York, and was returned to North Brother Island, where she remained for the rest of her life. A paralytic stroke in 1932 led to her slow death six years later.

Mallon claimed to have been born in the United States, but it was later determined that she was an immigrant. In all, 51 original cases of typhoid and three deaths were directly attributed to her (countless more were indirectly attr