Mary Kate Doman - Tragedy at the Triangle: Friendship in the Tenements and the Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2015 by Mary Kate Doman

All rights reserved

Front cover: Two girls. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

First published 2015

e-book edition 2015

ISBN 978.1.62585.178.9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014954845

print edition ISBN 978.1.62619.645.2

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Dedicated to Patricia Murphy Doman for teaching me how to be a mom,

and

Tess Murphy Nolan for making me a mom.

CONTENTS

1

MOVING DAY

Cecelia Napoli ran her hand along the smooth banister as she raced up the twenty-five steps that took her to the front door of her new home. I love this place already, she said out loud to no one in particular while staring up at the tin ceiling. Even though the lighting was dim, she could make out the small floral patterns etched into the ceiling. Cecelia thought it was beautiful.

The Napoli family had just moved to East Seventh Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The neighborhood was filled with emigrants who came from countries all over the world. Most of them, like Cecelias family, had come to America to build better lives for themselves.

I will work hard to make sure my family has an even better life in America than we did in Italy, Cecelia had heard her father say over and over again.

The Napolis were once a very prominent family in Italy. But after a fire burned down the vineyard where they lived and worked, they lost everything. They had no choice but to pack up the few belongings that had not been lost in the fire and start over again. Everyone always said there were plenty of opportunities to make it big in America, so the Napolis sold the last of the wine that had not been lost in the fire. They had just enough money to buy six tickets on the next passenger ship that sailed from Naples to New York. It had all happened so fast.

I never had a chance to say goodbye to my best friend, Gemma, Cecelia told her mother as the massive ship pulled away from the dock.

Maybe you will see her again one day, her mother had said. Maybe Gemma and her family will move to America one day, too.

Cecelia and her mother, Lucia; her father, Lorenzo; and her three younger brothers, Armond, Marco and Leo, had immigrated to America in 1908. Sometimes it was hard for Cecelia to believe that she had been in America for almost three years, and other times it seemed like she had always lived here. When she arrived, Cecelia was homesick for her friends and the sights, smells and sounds of her tiny village back in Italy.

I wish we never came to America, Cecelia said to her mother.

Dont say that, Cecilia. We are lucky we had enough money to even pay for our passage to America. You will learn to love it here, maybe even just as much as you love Italy, her mother replied.

At first, Cecelia found the streets of Manhattan scary and confusing. The neighborhood she lived in, the Lower East Side, was packed with over seven hundred people per acre, making it the most crowded neighborhood in the world. To make things even more unsettling, it was filled with people who spoke foreign languages, wore strange clothes and ate exotic foods.

Over time, Cecilia realized that her mother was right.

Manhattan is exciting, she mused.

Cecelia quickly became used to the different ways of life bustling around her, and she learned to speak English. Cecilia liked hearing all of the different accents and smelling the myriad smells of foreign cuisine. It made her feel alive. She never told this to her parents, though. They wanted her to associate only with other Italian people.

Once, Cecelia told her mother, I dont know why we even moved to America if I am not allowed to be friends with other girls on my street just because they were born in Germany or Russia or Ireland.

Cecelias mother looked at her, shook her head and said, You better not let your father hear you talking like that.

Cecelia knew that most immigrant groups stuck with their own kind.

Why do I need to learn English? Cecelia heard her father ask many times. Everyone I know is Italian. I dont want to talk to anybody who cannot speak Italian.

Even though she loved everything about being Italian, including her mothers cooking and her fathers stories about growing up on the family vineyard, Cecilia could not help thinking, I dont think there is anything wrong with being friends with girls who are Irish, Greek, Russian or Jewish. I am a real American now. Arent Americans supposed to get along with everybody? Doesnt Lady Liberty welcome everyone to America the same way when they first arrive at Ellis Island?

However, today Cecelia was not going to let her parents opinions get her down. Today was the day they were finally moving into their new home. Ever since they moved to America, Cecelia and her family had lived with her Uncle Carlo and two cousins in a two-room tenement around the corner on Orchard Street. Even though Cecelias father had a good job as a wine merchant, he worked very hard six, sometimes seven, days a week to save up enough money to move his family to their own tenement apartment.

Lucia was always saying, You work too hard, Lorenzo. You need to relax. Take a day off and play with the children every once in a while.

Hard work is the only thing that is going to help us achieve our American dream. The first part of our American dream is to rent our own apartment, and renting a decent apartment costs money, so I have to work as much as I can. I dont have time to relax, Lorenzo replied every time.

THE NAPOLIS NEW HOME was bigger than the one they lived in with Cecelias uncle and cousins. With three fewer people living under the same roof, there would be much more room for playing, eating and sleeping, too. On Orchard Street, Cecelia had slept on a small cot in the kitchen, and her parents shared the tiny bedroom with Uncle Carlo. Her brothers and cousins slept in the front room with their bodies lying across wooden crates and their heads resting on the couch instead of on pillows. It was the only place that could accommodate the boys lanky bodies.

Unlike the Orchard Street tenement, not all of the other families who lived on East Seventh Street were from Italy. Cecelia could not believe her parents would move into a building so diverse, but as more people came to the Lower East Side, housing options were becoming increasingly harder to find, as well as more expensive.

Well just stay here until something opens up in an all-Italian building, Cecelia overheard her father tell Uncle Carlo while they were lugging their suitcases and their few pieces of furniture up the stairs to the fifth floor.

Once again, Cecelia would be sleeping on a cot in the kitchen, but she didnt mind. The kitchen in their new apartment was much nicer than the one in Uncle Carlos. It had a sink, a coal-burning stove and a little cutout that looked into the front room. It even had lights that turned on when you put a penny in the little slot next to the front door. Cecelia hoped that her father would keep on making enough money to keep the lights on all of the time. She had heard stories about some families not being able to use their lights when money was tight. I cant imagine having a luxury like lights and not being able to use them, Cecelia said to her youngest brother, Leo.