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Saturday, March 26, 2011

Mary Floresta

Mary Floresta, age 26, born in Italy, married, mother of one child, leaped to her death from the 9th floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, March 25, 1911, as fire raged and all but one exit were locked, and the one was no longer accessible.  Fire nets below didn't hold.  From the time the fire started until it was put under control by the fire department, 20 minutes had passed and 146 were dead.

Dialog with the Weaver, oil pastel over acrylic

1 comment:

  1. Tragic, and it's equally tragic that a hundred years later we still don't know the names of the young women working and dying in conditions just like these, in factories all across East Asia, laboring endlessly to satisfy our bottomless appetite for cheap goods.

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