Sarah McCarroll, MFA, PhD

The Triangle Factory Fire Project

Costume Design; Georgia Southern University Fall 2012

This documentary-style script details the events of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City and the subsequent trial of the company’s owners for the deaths of the more than one hundred mostly immigrant women and girls who were killed either in the flames and smoke or by jumping to their deaths. The audience’s interlocutor is Matthew Shepherd, a young newspaper reporter who helplessly watches the fire spread and then relates the events of the trial. Most of the actors in this production each took on many roles, with the exception of the actor playing Shepherd, so it was essential that the costumes be able to shift between roles easily, with the change of a coat or the addition of a shawl or some other accessory. One of the goals of the director was to emphasize the vitality of the young women who worked in the factory; their goals, families, and thoughts are revealed in the exposition and are important to the emotional structure of the play. To accomplish this effect, I centered the color palette for the girls, especially those who died or were galvanized into activism by the fire, around warm colors: reds, rusts, pinks, peaches, warm browns and mustards. This was contrasted to the cool blues and greys of the factory owners, New York authority figures who rejected garment workers’ pleas for regulation of workplaces, and the young women who perjured themselves at trial in exchange for hush money. My research revealed that many of the immigrant young women who worked in early twentieth-century garment factories were among the early wave of independent American working women. Even if they lived with their families, they had some money of their own, and were invested in creating an American identity separate from the European roots of their parents; this manifested itself in an interest in fashion. Many of these girls and women paid close attention to their ensembles and within their incomes, tried to dress well. To reflect this, I made sure that each of the factory girls’ costumes had some sense of detailing, whether with pin tucks or lace on a blouse, tucks or trim on skirts, or the large hair bows typical of the period.