The Triangle Fire, Protocols Of Peace: And Industrial Democracy In Progressive

America searched for an answer to The Labor Question during the Progressive Era in an effort to avoid the unrest and violence that were the rule in the early 20th Century. In the ladies’ garment industry, an experiment in industrial democracy brought together labor, management the public. Led by Louis Brandeis, a group of industrial democrats sought to solve the labor problem through a labor agreement, the Protocols of Peace. In the midst of this experiment, 146 mostly young, immigrant women died in the Triangle Factory Fire of 1911. As a result of the Fire, New York’s Factory Investigating Commission, lead by Robert Wagner and Al Smith, created one of the largest reform successes of the period. These two events have too often been studied as separate, unconnected episodes. But both events were connected by a developing ideology called industrial democracy, which sought to solve the labor problems facing America.