Big Announcement

Hollander-Waas Jewish Heritage Services is thrilled to share that co-founder, Michael Waas, has been appointed scholar-in-residence for the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society (NYG&B). He will be researching “the documentation of Jewish families in the NYG&B’s materials and produce the first-of-its-kind survey of NYG&B resources available for tracing Jewish heritage from colonial times to the present in New York State."

Read more about the project here:

https://www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org/nygb’s-new-scholar-residence

The Triangle Factory Fire, 110 Years On

By Caitlin Hollander

Very rarely is a law enacted in anticipation of a disaster; they are almost always due to a tragedy that has already happened. Exit doors in the US legally must open outwards due to the 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago, which claimed the lives of over 600 people- in part because they were trapped when the inward-swinging doors could not be opened due to the crush of the panicked crowd.

In 1911, the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building (now called the Brown Building) near Washington Park in Lower Manhattan were home to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which mass produced the on-trend women’s garment. The shirtwaist, which had risen in popularity in the late 19th century, was the woman’s answer to a man’s dress shirt. Mass producing them meant that this fashion trend was accessible to the lower income New Yorker. And just like much of modern-day mass-produced fashion, the workers involved in the creation of the garments were treated poorly, working long hours for little pay in unsafe working conditions. At the Triangle, the mostly young, female, Jewish and Italian immigrant workers earned between $7 and $12 per 52-hour workweek (or about $165-$318 in today’s money, or about $3.17 to $6.11 an hour). This job was coveted for another reason- fires were common in the garment industry, and the Asch Building had been described as “fireproof” (echoing the tragedy of the “unsinkable” Titanic a year later).

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This article was posted at 4:40pm EST, on March 25, 2021; exactly 110 years ago to the minute from the moment that a fire broke out on the 8th story of the Asch Building. This fatal fire, which would take so many lives, would forever change the way that American laborers were treated.

Thirty-nine year old Catherine Maltese (born Caterina Camino) was there at work on March 25, 1911, with her daughters, twenty-year-old Lucia and Rosaria, who at only fourteen years old, was one of the youngest employees of the Triangle. They were living at 35 2nd Avenue in Manhattan with Catherine’s husband and Lucia and Rosaria’s father, Serafino, and Serafino and Catherine’s other two living children, Vito and Paolo. According to the 1910 census (which records Rosaria as Sara and Vito as Tom), Catherine and their children had arrived in America four years prior from Italy. The first tragedy occurred shortly after immigration; Catherine and the couple’s youngest daughter, a girl named Maria, were detained at Ellis Island due to illness. While Catherine survived, four-year-old Maria perished before ever getting past this gateway to America. In total, the couple had lost three children; far from uncommon for the era.

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The Maltese family on the 1910 US Census. Image via FamilySearch

According to the fire marshal’s report, the fire likely began in one of the scrap bins under the wooden tables of the factory. These bins held several months' worth of highly flammable scraps of fabric. Beyond the issue of flammable rags, conditions in the Triangle were far from safe. The owners had ordered the doors to one of the two external staircases (despite three being required by law, the city allowed the fire escape to count as a third) locked to prevent employees from stealing. That fire escape was narrow and poorly anchored, and could not bear the weight of too many people- something which would prove fatal.

In addition to the dangerous working conditions, the owners of the factory, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, were notorious for their anti-worker policies. When the garment workers union had ordered a strike in 1909, they paid off the police to arrest the striking workers. Upon the end of the strike, the Triangle refused to sign the union agreement. This would’ve guaranteed increased safety and worker protections. After the fire, the unions would have reason to strike again

At 4:45pm, the first alarm was sounded by a pedestrian passing by the building who noticed the smoke. The building had no fire alarms, and the 9th floor had no telephone; so when a bookkeeper working on the 8th floor saw the fire he was able to call up to the 10th to warn the employees there, but the employees on the 9th floor had no knowledge of the fire until it reached them. The employees there would make up the majority of those killed.

On February 5, 1911, six weeks and six days before the fire, a seventeen year old girl named Sarah Brenman arrived at Ellis Island. She was born in the town of Sharovka, now in Ukraine, and had come to America to live with her older brother, Morris (Moshe), who had come to America seven years earlier in 1904. Three other siblings had already come to America; another brother, Joseph, and two sisters, Rosie (Reizel) and Esther. Twenty-three year old Rosie or twenty-one year old Joseph most likely had gotten the job at the Triangle for their newly-arrived sister, as they were both employees of the Triangle and were both there that day.

The foreman with the key to the locked third staircase fled as soon as the flames began. The flames on the 8th floor made it impossible to descend the unlocked staircase, and so some employees used it to flee to the roof until it became blocked both ways. New York University students from neighboring buildings grabbed ladders and ropes; their efforts saved 50 of the trapped workers.

But now, the only staircase remaining that could be used to get out was the flimsy fire escape. The workers crowded it until it collapsed, sending about 20 people falling nine stories to their deaths.

The collapsed fire escape in a photo taken for the official report on the fire.

The only remaining way to escape was the elevators, operated by some of the factory’s few male employees- Joseph Zito and Gaspar Mortillaro. Even getting to the elevators was tricky, with the long, narrow corridor becoming easily crowded and the language barriers causing increasing confusion.

Joseph Zito, a twenty-seven year old new father had only been working at the Triangle for about six months. He braved the flames and extreme heat- heat which damaged Gaspar Mortillaro’s elevator so badly that it could no longer make the trip- to go twice to the tenth floor, loading his elevator with as many people as he could. When the fire became too great, he continued to go to the ninth floor, and then eventually just the eighth, each time overloading his elevator. On his last trip, he carried 40 people in an elevator with a capacity of 10. In desperation, people climbed on top of the car. The weight proved too great, and the cables snapped.

There was no way out. 62 people were witnessed jumping or falling to their deaths.

After the smoke cleared, the death toll began to mount. The circumstances of the fire made it hard to identify victims immediately; many were taken to Charities Pier by the East River for identification.

In total, 146 people, ranging in age from fourteen to forty-three were killed in the 18 minutes the fire raged. 

The bodies of Lucia and Rosaria Maltese were identified by their father the day after the fire. They had been found at the bottom of an elevator shaft in each others’ arms. But Serafino could not find Catherine, and kept returning again and again searching for her. 

Due to the state of Catherine’s body, she was not identified until June of 1911. She had, by then, been buried with the other unidentified victims. The Red Cross gave the family the money to have Catherine’s body moved, and she was buried with Lucia, Rosaria, and little Maria in Calvary Cemetery.

The Evening World, New York, New York, March 27, 1911.

The Star-Gazette, Elmira, New York, March 27, 1911.

Sarah, Rosie, and Joseph Brenman were all employed by the Triangle and were all present on the day of the fire. Only twenty-one year old Joseph escaped. Sarah and Rosie’s bodies were so badly damaged that they both were identified by their teeth; Rosie, by her brother with the assistance of a dentist on March 29, and Sarah, by their sister Esther on April 1.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York, March 30 1911. Image via Newspapers.com

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn, New York, April 2, 1911. Image via Newspapers.com

Nineteen year old Esther had a nervous breakdown after, according to the Red Cross, who sent money to the family both there as well as to their widowed father, Chiel, and two younger sisters in the Russian Empire. Eventually, the family would be reunited in New York, when Chiel and his youngest daughters arrived in 1922. The girls are buried together at Baron Hirsch Cemetery.

The Triangle Factory Fire and its avoidable death toll elicited outrage, especially from unions, who took to the streets to protest. After the official report was issued, stating that if the doors had been unlocked it was entirely possible that no one would have died, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, both Jewish immigrants themselves, were charged with manslaughter. They were acquitted of criminal charges, but lost a 1913 wrongful death suit and were forced to pay $75 per victim to the families. This may sound just, but they had a $60,000 insurance payout from the fire, so when all was paid they had actually earned approximately $336 per victim.

But Max Blanck’s lack of remorse is clear when, the same year as the wrongful death lawsuit, he was caught once again locking the doors of a factory he owned to keep workers inside. There was a national outcry when he was fined a mere $20 for the crime.

This fire instigated major changes in American workplace safety law. As a result of the fire and the many union protests after, New York founded the Factory Investigating Commission. From 1911–1913, 38 laws for workers’ rights were passed in New York State.

The last survivor of the fire, Rose Freedman (maiden name Rosenfeld) died in 2001 at the age of a hundred and seven. She had been only seventeen at the time of the fire.

Smaller monuments dot the cemeteries where the victims are buried, sponsored by unions and families, but, despite funds being designated for the purpose by the state of New York in 2015, there is still no other memorial to the 146 people who died that day 110 years ago.

May their memories be a blessing and their legacy never forgotten.

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Further reading

The elevator operator Joseph Zito, who survived, saved over 100 lives that day. For more information about him, please read this story from WNYC. https://www.wnyc.org/story/119910-family-keeps-memory-triangle-fire-elevator-operator-alive/

Cornell University’s Triangle Factory website is an absolutely invaluable resource for primary and secondary source documentation https://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/index.html

The Red Cross’s full disclosure on the emergency relief after the fire can be found here: https://archive.org/details/emergencyreliefa00charrich/mode/2up?view=theater

OSHA has a page on the fire here, which links to a number of excellent resources: https://www.osha.gov/aboutosha/40-years/trianglefactoryfire

The Epidemic That Wasn't

By Caitlin Hollander

A 47-year-old leather importer and his wife arrived in New York City on a business trip. Most likely exhausted from the long journey from Mexico, they checked into a midtown hotel where the businessman noticed that he had a headache. He took some medication and went to sleep, probably thinking it little more than a side effect of the stress of the trip. But he started to feel worse and after developing worrying symptoms, went to the hospital. They transferred him to another hospital, one more able to handle a potentially contagious condition. There, he was determined to be having an adverse reaction to the headache medication he had taken - nothing serious. The appropriate medication was administered; yet, his symptoms worsened. After 8 days in New York City, he was dead. The cause of death was ruled “erythema multiforme with laryngotracheobronchitis and bronchopneumonia” - essentially, the allergic reaction plus bronchitis and pneumonia.

Then, two patients who had also been in the hospital at the same time as the businessman became ill with the same symptoms:, a young man in his 20s and an infant. Both had already been discharged and returned home to their families. More tests were performed - after all, allergic reactions are not contagious - and it was discovered that they had something far worse than anyone had imagined.

Smallpox

The year was 1947. Eugene LaBar was the first smallpox fatality in New York City in 35 years. The two additional patients had gone home to crowded apartments; it would be discovered later that the young man, Ismael Acosta, had infected his wife, Carmen, who would be the second fatality in this outbreak. Carmen Acosta was 27 years old, eight months pregnant, and the last person to die of smallpox in New York City.

Ever

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Page 2 of Eugene LaBar’s death certificate, dated March 10, 1947, indicating that he had died of “erythema multiforme with laryngotracheobronchitis and bronchopneumonia”

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Page 2 of Carmen Acosta’s death certificate, dated April 12, 1947. Her cause of death is one word- Variola, the medical name of smallpox. She was 27 years old, and had died within 6 days of showing symptoms

But how was this possible? How was such a communicable disease halted in its tracks in a city where, ten years prior, 165,000 families living in tenements still did not have access to private toilets? How did the outbreak only last two months and only infect 12 people?

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From the The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Mon, Apr 14, 1947

The answer is what became the most ambitious and aggressive public health campaign to date at the time, perhaps in all of history. Quarantines were issued, travel histories were tracked, and most importantly, the mass vaccination of the residents of New York City began. In under a month, 6,350,000 people were vaccinated. 5,000,000 of them were vaccinated in the first two weeks. 179 locations across the city, from police stations to doctors’ offices to public schools, were opened up as free vaccination clinics. WWII air marshals were remobilized to go door-to-door, letting people know where they could be vaccinated.

In short, the entire city was mobilized to stop the progression of the disease.

But who led the charge? Who saw the danger, acted, and saved the lives of hundreds, potentially thousands, of New Yorkers?

This is the story of Dr. Israel Weinstein, a man nearly forgotten to history, who saved the lives of countless men, women, and children in the smallpox outbreak of 1947.

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New York Times, April 9, 1947

To the left, an image from the New York Times of Dr. Weinstein vaccinating his staff. Above, a recording of one of his many public health messages. Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection

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The ship’s manifest of the ship bringing Rosa (later called Freida), Dina, and Josef Weinstein into the US- they are entries 34-36

On October 30, 1890, the SS Augusta Victoria departed from Hamburg bound for New York City. In steerage was a young mother named Rosa Weinstein and her two children, Josef and Dina. They were travelling to New York from Brest (now Belarus) to meet their husband and father, David, who was living in a tenement on the Lower East Side. They reunited, and in 1891 another son, Alexander, was born. Another son would follow on May 26, 1893: Israel. All of the Weinstein children were born at home; Alexander, Israel, and Marie in tenements on the Lower East Side, and the youngest two, Milton and Gilbert, in Bronx tenements. And although he was only two when his younger sister Marie died, when his brother Gilbert died, Israel was nine – old enough to remember. Both children died of pneumonia.

Israel went on to graduate with his Bachelor of Arts from City College in 1913, followed by a Masters in 1915 at Columbia, and a 1917 D.Sc at NYU. During this time, he was working as a biology teacher at Morris High School. His life would be interrupted by something far greater than his education, however: the First World War.

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Israel Weinstein’s WWI service card, detailing his officer’s service; his enlisted card is far shorter and only covers the months before his commission.

At 24 years of age, Israel Weinstein delayed medical school and instead enlisted into the US Army in December of 1917. He was commissioned as a first lieutenant the following February and served in the Army Expedition Force, seeing action during the Battle of Saint-Mihiel. He finally came home and returned to his job teaching biology, where he would stay until 1922. It was during WWI, however, that he designed his first public health campaign, directed at soldiers to reduce venereal diseases.

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From Israel Weinstein’s Jewish Serviceman’s Questionnaire, from the records of the American Jewish Committee. This portion details his service, including his work in charge of the educational campaign to reduce VD

In 1920 Israel’s father David died of heart disease. Perhaps this event changed the direction of Israel’s life because he entered Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons not long after, graduating in 1926. During this time period, he began working for the New York City Department of Health giving public health lectures.

In 1930 Israel received his PhD from Columbia, his last in a series of advanced degrees. He was unmarried and living with his oldest brother Joseph and his family. Tragedy would strike the Weinstein family yet again, however, when Joseph died in 1938. Israel was forced to move and live with his older brother Alexander and their widowed mother. But their mother Freida (once called Rose) would die in an accident while visiting Israel’s sister Dina in Michigan in 1942.

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From The Daily Register. Red Bank, New Jersey, Thu, Oct 29, 1942

As for Israel? He had once again signed up for the army with the outbreak of WWII, now as a major. Once again, he was giving public health lectures.

With the end of the war, Israel found himself in a new position. He was released from the army on May 18, 1946, and by May 27, was officially New York City’s new health commissioner.

Less than a year later, Eugene LaBar would come to New York City with an undiagnosed case of smallpox and spark the health campaign that marked Dr. Weinstein’s career.

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Above: An article about Dr. Weinstein’s appointment (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 26, 1946).

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Above: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (April 15, 1947)
Below: The Daily Messenger, Canandaigua, New York (April 18, 1947)

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According to Dr. Weinstein’s writeup after the fact (which I have included at the end of this article), smallpox was officially confirmed in Ismael Acosta on April 4th; nearly a month after LaBar’s death on March 10th. Immediately, the Health Department sprang into action. The laboratories producing the vaccination began working 24 hours a day. 179 city buildings were used for vaccination stations:schools, hospitals, police and fire stations. Hundreds of thousands of doses were sent by the army and navy. Mayor O’Dwyer was among the first to be vaccinated, and even President Truman was vaccinated in order to give a speech in New York City. To quote Dr. Weinstein:

“In a period of less than a month, 6,350,000 people were vaccinated in New York City, over 5,000,000 of them within the two week period following the appeal for universal vaccination by the Mayor. Never before had so many people been vaccinated in such a city and on such short notice.”

The task was monumental. But somehow, when the city was declared smallpox-free in mid-April, only 12 people had been made ill and only two had died. To contrast, in a 1945 outbreak in Puget Sound, Washington, 65 people caught smallpox and 20 died. Again, to quote Dr. Weinstein:

“During the period 1900 to 1929, epidemics of virulent smallpox were reported throughout the United States. Notable among these were the outbreaks in 1921 in Denver and Kansas City, when the former city reported 924 cases and 37 deaths, and the latter 943 cases and 160 deaths. In 1924, Detroit reported 1,610 cases and 163 deaths. In 1901, an epidemic of smallpox in New York City resulted in 1,959 cases and 410 deaths. Had the same rate prevailed in the 1947 outbreak, there would have been 4,310 cases and 902 deaths.”

To give an idea of the magnitude of this achievement, in 1972 there was a smallpox outbreak in what was then Yugoslavia. 175 people would be infected, and 35 would die. This was a fraction of what happened in New York City a quarter of a century before. One would think that Israel Weinstein’s name would be shouted from the rooftops, that there would be schools, hospitals, and streets named after him. But there are not. 

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Fort Worth Star-Telegram, February 10, 1948

Seven months after the outbreak ended, so did Dr. Weinstein’s time as health commissioner. He resigned Nov 3rd. He briefly served as the director of the Bureau of Health Education until 1949, when he retired.

From here, he would fade into something resembling obscurity. Except for the rare newspaper mention of public lectures he was giving (as close as Brooklyn and as far as Tel Aviv), very little is said of Dr. Weinstein or the 1947 outbreak until his death in 1975. He never married and had no children; he outlived his parents and five of his six siblings. All that he merited was a brief obituary, summing up his life into one short column in the New York Times.

So what can be said of this man?

He was the middle child of Jewish immigrants. The son of a man in the garment industry in New York City, as so many were. He devoted his life to education and to public health. He served in two world wars, and while he did not serve in combat positions his contributions were no less vital.

And he most likely saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives. Despite many saying after the fact that he overreacted, or acted too soon, he did what was needed at a time when the lives of many hung in the balance.

For this, at the very least, he should be remembered. 

Israel Weinstein’s single column obituary in the New York Times

Further reading:

Dr. Weinstein’s writeup of the smallpox outbreak- discusses the situation and his response in his own words.