Mar 31, 2021 8:50 PM EDT
On the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street, in New York City’s Greenwich Village, is a bronze plaque affixed to the Neo-Renaissance façade of the Brown Building—now part of New York University. The building, it says, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and as a National Historical Landmark. Only 110 years ago, this now-vertical classroom and office building was once the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Shirtwaists, the fashion a la mode, were cotton blouses, requiring no corset or hoops. The demand for the Triangle shirtwaists among working women in New York and beyond was enormous. In the factory, the foremen did everything they could to keep the women sewing to prevent “the interruption of work.”