The Hidden Women: “We Are One”
by Olivia Mariscal
Monuments and public art represent history, memories, heroes, and the remembrance of atrocities. In New York City, of the 150 historical monuments, only 5 of them represent women. What does it mean when there is so little representation of women who have made history and who deserve to be memorialized? In a way, it seems as though New York is forgetting women or remembering in a way that is convenient. Not only is there a lack of historical monuments representing women, the monuments or statues that are female lack details and personalization. There are statues that simply represent motherhood or fountains with nude female engravings, objectifying and downplaying the importance that women have had on the city.
First female led union: International Ladies Garment Workers Union (1900)
For my monument, I want to honor the many women who worked and continue to work in the garment industry today in New York City, but also in Bangladesh and Pakistan where the garment industry is most prominent today. I was inspired by the tragic history of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The factory was located where NYU’s Brown Building is today, on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors. In the early 1900s, around 500 women, mostly Jewish and Italian immigrants, worked behind locked doors making shirtwaists. These women worked 6 days, 52 hours a week, earning around $3 each week or less. In 1909 Clara Lemlich, a 19-year-old garment worker, encouraged other female workers to join unions, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in particular. This led to a massive strike called the “Uprising of the 20,000”, where young garment workers demanded better conditions, pay, and safety. A year after the strike ended and companies presumably gave workers what they were asking for, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory burst into flames; and within 15 minutes 30% of the workers were killed. Fire trucks could only reach the 7th floor, so many died of asphyxiation. Others jumped out of desperation, however, the nets below them tore, unable to hold all the people jumping. Of the 146 deaths, 123 were women and 51 were girls 18 and under. Most New Yorkers and NYU students are unaware of this history when they walk past the building.
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory workers.
Since the fire, there have been several different protests, memorials, and attempts at commemorating the people who died, however, as time passes there is no permanence when remembering the tragic day and the lives lost daily to clothing manufacturing. Today factory work has moved to Asia where labor is cheaper and where the people can be further exploited by European and American brands. With that said, I also want to honor those who died in the other two largest garment industry disasters, along with those who continue to work in the industry today. In Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan, two fires broke out on the same day in 2012, killing more than 300 workers. Their exit doors were locked and the windows were covered with iron bars making it impossible for the workers to get out of the building and escape. In 2013, outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh, an eight story building collapsed, killing more than 1,000 people. This disaster is considered the deadliest in the history of the garment industry. More than half of those dead and injured were women and young girls. What these all have in common is the large majority of female workers and that they could have been preventable; factory owners knew that the conditions of the buildings were less than ideal and did nothing to fix it: “Even in a situation of grave threat, when they saw cracks in the walls, factory managers thought it was too risky not to work because of the pressure on them from U.S. and European retailers to deliver their goods on time.” Oftentimes, factory owners would rather garment workers continue working due to deadlines and pressure, devaluing the workers lives and putting them at risk every day. Through my monument I, therefore, want to show how time passes and conditions and pay haven’t sufficiently improved and how the lives of these workers are still being treated as disposable. I also want to make people care about the workers and appreciate the work that they do because they often go unrecognized.
Currently, there is an absence of monuments honoring the people who make the clothes we purchase and wear daily. On the Brown Building, there is a plaque that says more about the history of the architecture than about the hard working women whose lives were lost; and more recently the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition commissioned a monument in 2013, and is still in need of many more donations—$1.5 million from Governor Cuomo out of the $2.97 needed. They are planning on putting horizontal steel panels around the building above the first floor and vertical panels that go all the way to the 9th floor. People donating $25,000 or more will be recognized on a vertical panel of the memorial, the horizontal panels will have all of the names of the people whose lives were lost, and there will be a panel explaining its history.[1] This monument is a great way to raise awareness on the history of the fire and building, however, it seems to be replicating the 9/11 memorial, along with other similar ones. It is serving more for aesthetic purposes and doesn’t say that much about women and labor.
Column of Strength, San Francisco.
Fearless Girl, New York City
Since we know that there was a fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory more than a hundred years ago and that these injustices relating to factory conditions continue to happen today, I want to show that continuation in my monument; not much has changed in terms of legislation, but more importantly the fashion industry continues to keep these spaces invisible. Taking inspiration from the Comfort Women Column of Strength in San Francisco that has 3 girls from China, Korea, and the Philippines, I have decided to also use 3 girls for my monument. I would like to put these human sized bronze statues across the Brown Building on Greene St, so that it’s not so close to the monument that they are already planning on building, but also as a way for my monument to interact with it and work together. They would be young girls to represent the 80% of women that work in the garment industry, and the large number that are underage.[2]
I would like to have three girls that come from different nationalities: Jewish-American, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi, representing the three largest garment industry disasters. Even if young girls may not be the majority of workers in all three countries, they are the ones that are most discriminated against and treated the most unfairly, so my monument will make that visible. The girls will also be staring at the building as a way to make people who walk by look up. This is an issue that goes across borders, making it more powerful to have these girls from different cultures and backgrounds, holding hands as a way to show solidarity between garment workers. There will also be a QR code, above a plaque that says “We Are One”, which takes you to a website explaining the history of each of these fires and gives you insight on who is making your clothes today.
[1] “Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition.” Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition RSS.
[2] “Gender: Women Workers Mistreated.” Clean Clothes Campaign, 29 Apr. 2013.