Beyond the Hall: A Day of Conversation about Commemoration, Historic Preservation, & the Study of History

Chalk and Commemoration of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Victims

One of the participants on our first panel, Commemoration, will be Ruth Sergel, who will be Skyping in from Berlin. Sergel founded Chalk, a “public intervention” in which volunteers memorialize the victims of the March 25, 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire by fanning “out across the city to inscribe in chalk the names and ages of the Triangle dead in front of their former homes.” Sergel is also involved with the Remember The Triangle Fire Coalition, which spearheads an effort to create a permanent memorial to the 146 victims of the fire, the vast majority of whom were young immigrant women. She has documented these efforts in her recent book, See You in the Streets: Art, Action, and Remembering the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (University of Iowa Press, 2016).

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