Armed Forces Day – U.S.

3rd Saturday in May
(May 21, 2011)

“Armed Forces Day, Saturday, May 20, 1950, marks the first combined demonstration by America’s defense team of its progress, under the National Security Act, towards the goal of readiness for any eventuality. It is the first parade of preparedness by the unified forces of our land, sea, and air defense.”

–President Harry Truman, Presidential Proclamation of February 27, 1950

In addition to creating the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Act reorganized the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps within a unified Department of Defense. (UFO-conspiracy theorists point out that Congress passed this classified Act just one month after the Roswell debacle of 1947. Coincidence?…Yes.) The purpose of the reorganization was to better identify and respond to “transnational threats” defined as “any transnational activity (including international terrorism, narcotics trafficking, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the delivery systems for such weapons, and organized crime) that threatens the national security of the United States.”

Armed Forces Day was meant to replace the separate Army, Navy, and Marine Corps Days, although the Marines continue to observe Marine Corps Day each November 10. Armed Forces Day, the third Saturday in May, serves a dual purpose. It is partly for the country to pay homage to the men and women in the armed services. But it is also a ‘facetime’ opportunity–for the military to interact with and educate the public in an informal setting about the Armed Forces.

The city of Torrance has hosted the Armed Services Day Parade every year for nearly 50 years. Before and after the parade, spectators get a chance sit in Air Force helicopters, Coast Guard boats, Army trucks, and other military vehicles, while exhibits show the more scientific side of the Armed Forces, including geological, geographical, and zoological studies.

2008 marked the 100th anniversary of U.S. Army Reserve, which began in 1908 as the Medical Reserve Corps. The original Corps consisted of 160 doctors who could be called upon to serve their country at a moment’s notice in times of war. Ten years later at the end of World War I the Army Reserve numbered over 160,000 soldiers on active duty.

“Armed Forces Day, above all, honors the dedicated individuals who wear the uniforms of their country. Each serviceman, wherever he may be, whatever his task, contributes directly and importantly to the defense of the nation.”

General Earle G. Wheeler, Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1967

“…Word to the Nation: Guard zealously your right to serve in the Armed Forces, for without them, there will be no other rights to guard.”

President John F. Kennedy, 1962

(Official AFD Poster, 1951)

http://www.defenselink.mil/afd/military/history.html

http://www.schweitzeres.org/armed_forces_day.htm

Stonewall Jackson Day

May 10

“Had Jackson lived to command the right or left wing at Gettysburg, the Confederacy might be approaching its 150th year of independence today.”

– General Wesley Clark, “Stonewall Jackson“, by D. Davis

Two years ago, I was informed by a reader and friend that it is the duty of Every Day’s a Holiday to warn unsuspecting visitors to South Carolina not to bother going to the DMV on May 10. Any such excursions will certainly result in failure. For today state offices, banks, and businesses shut down to honor the memory of Thomas Jonathan Jackson, a man better known by his nickname: “Stonewall”.

Jackson has one-and-a-half holidays devoted to him. South Carolina commemorates the anniversary of his death on May 10, while Virginia combines the birthdays of Jackson (January 21, 1824) and Robert E. Lee (January 19, 1807) to celebrate Lee-Jackson Day.

Jackson lost his father and mother at an early age, and was raised by relatives. The orphan attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and despite starting with an educational handicap, he graduated 17th out of a class of 59. He then served in the Mexican-American War, and taught at the Virginia Military Institute.

Three months after the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861, Jackson was promoted to Brigider-General.

Stonewall Jackson as a young man, Virginia Military Institute

At the First Battle of Bull Run, when Union forces broke through Confederate lines, Jackson’s troops stood their ground defending the hill, causing Confederate General Barnard Bee to exclaim to his men, “There stands Jackson like a stone wall!” The name stuck. “Stonewall” Jackson and his “Stonewall Brigade” became symbols of Southern bravery.

Of course there may be another reason Jackson stood like a stone wall. As a student at West Point, one of Jackson’s many eccentricities was a belief that, if he bent over, it could damage his internal organs.

Jackson’s odd behaviors and personality traits caused some modern scholars to suggest…

“Stonewall Jackson meets the criteria for Asperger Syndrome, with clear evidence of a qualitative impairment in social interaction and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities. Although individuals with Asperger Syndrome demonstrate major problems in social relationships, many are capable of great creativity because of their ability to focus on a single topic — in this case, on the field of battle and in military affairs.”

Genius Genes: How Asperger Talents Changed the World, by Michael Fitzgerald and Brendan O’Brien

Jackson was one of the greatest military strategists in U.S. history. By October he was promoted to Major General. He led his troops to striking victories in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign. The Stonewall Brigade distinguished itself at Antietam and numerous other battles. It’s been said that had Jackson lived long enough to assist Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg, the South might have won the war’s bloodiest stalemate, and maybe even the war.

But it wasn’t to be. Jackson met his end at the Battle of Chancelorsville in May 1863. Jackson showed little concern regarding bullets whizzing about him, and on May 2, he was wounded by Confederate troops who mistook his convoy for Yanks. His arm was amputated, and he died of misdiagnosed pneumonia eight days later.

“Sadly, in April of 1865, only 210 men from the original Stonewall Brigade were left at Appomattox.  Because of the reputation of the brigade on both sides of the war, the Stonewall Brigade was the first to march through the Federal lines at the surrender.”

— www.stonewallbrigade.com

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson

Mother’s Day

Second Sunday in May

Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!
May I sing to thee
As thou wast hymned on the shore of Baiae?

When the 22 year-old Keats wrote the beginning of his “Ode to Maia,” he had been an orphan for eight years. He was traveling to the seaside town of Teignmouth for the spring, to take care of his brother Tom, who was dying of tuberculosis—the same illness that took their mother and would later take Keats himself.

The first several lines of Keats’ ode were recorded in a letter to a friend: “I wrote them on May-day and intend to finish the ode all in good time.

The ‘good time’ never came. Keats died three years later. The poem was never written.

In Keats’ day it was well-known that May was named for the Greek and Roman goddess of spring, the eldest sister of the seven Pleiades and the mother to Hermes/Mercury by father Zeus/Jupiter. She was also trusted by the philandering Zeus to be his son Arcas’s wet-nurse when his jealous wife Hera turned Arcas’s biological mother into a bear.

Hermes & Maia

Some say our own tradition for dedicating a day to mothers comes out of Maia’s Roman feast. Her day was on the 15th, the Ides (full moon) of the month. Her name not only meant mother, but also “increasing”, referring to the abundance of flora and fauna in spring. (Likewise, the Angles and Saxons called the month “Tri-milchi”, because they could start milking their cows three times a day due to the plentiful grass.)

In other parts of the world, particularly the Middle East, Mother’s Day is celebrated closer to the vernal equinox, while in the U.K., “Mothering Sunday” is celebrated on the Sunday three weeks before Easter, usually in March. Beginning in the 1600s, employers would traditionally give servants the fourth Sunday of Lent off allowing them to attend services at their “mother church”. Mothering Sunday became synonymous for family reunions.

Mother’s Day in America

Mother’s Day in the United States is largely the work of two women.  Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis.

Julia Ward Howe

Julia Ward Howe was the abolitionist famous for turning the lackluster lyrics of “John Brown’s Body” into the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” After the Civil War Howe changed her tune–or lyrics actually–to focus on on the women’s suffrage movement and the creation of a “Mothers’ Day for Peace” (note the apostrophe). During the Franco-Prussian War she spoke in London and Paris, and brought the idea of a Mothers’ Day for Peace back home to Boston. The holiday, which she envisioned would be celebrated in June, didn’t get much further than New England, but her Mothers’ Day Proclamation of 1870 stirred women across the country:

“Arise then…women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

“…Blood does not wipe our dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace…”

Her vision of Mothers’ Day was one of maternal cohesion, women coming together to work for social justice.

But Mother’s Day as we know it—a day on which children celebrate and honor their own mothers—bears more in common with the vision of a West Virginian by the name of Anna Jarvis…

continued: Anna Jarvis — Mother’s Day in America

Mother’s Day in America – Anna Jarvis

continued from Mother’s Day

Ann Jarvis (left) & daughter Anna
Ann Jarvis (left) and daughter Anna

Before Julia Ward Howe began her Mothers’ Day for Peace campaign, another mother, Mrs. Ann Jarvis, had established a network of “Mothers’ Day Friendship Clubs” to improve sanitation conditions throughout West Virginia. She taught other mothers how to disinfect wounds, sterilize bottles, and prevent food from spoiling.

When the Civil War broke out, Jarvis and her clubs refused to take sides. Instead they tended to the wounded of both sides. After the war, having seen the carnage inflicted by and upon Union and Confederate troops, she pushed for the observance of a “Mothers’ Day”. Like Howe, Ann Jarvis’s Mothers’ Day stressed peace and social activism.

It was her daughter however–Anna Jarvis–who created Mother’s Day as we know it.

In 1907 Anna arranged a memorial service for her mother, the previously mentioned Ann Jarvis, who had passed away on May 9, 1905. Determined to help others appreciate their mothers when they were alive, Anna Jarvis held the first official Mother’s Day the following year, on the second Sunday of May, 1908.

Over 100 years ago this weekend, 407 children and their mothers participated at the first Mother’s Day service at the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia.

Andrew Methodist Episcopal Church, Grafton, WV

Anna had a very specific idea of Mother’s Day. It was to be celebrated on Sunday rather than a specific date because it was a ‘holy day’, not a ‘holiday’. (Also, her mother taught Sunday school for 25 years.)

She even specified where the apostrophe was to fall: it was Mother’s Day, not Mothers’ Day. It would be a personal celebration in honor of one’s own mother, rather than for all mothers in general.

This version of Mother’s Day spread quickly–spurred on by the letters of Anna and her friends promoting the holiday. In 1910 West Viriginia became the first state to declare the holiday. Just four years later the resolution passed in both houses of Congress, and Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May “a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.”

But by the 1920s the new holiday met with opposition from an unexpected source:

Anna Jarvis herself.

Anna had no idea the commercial epidemic she would unleash upon the American public. Appalled by the materialistic takeover of what was to her a very personal day, she spent much of the rest of her life denouncing the exploitation of the day she had helped to create. She wrote:

A printed card means nothing, except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world.

Perhaps the irony is that the younger Jarvis succeeded where the elder Jarvis and Julia Ward Howe had not precisely because her incarnation of Mother’s Day was commercially exploitable. Americans could purchase gifts for their own mothers, as opposed to the concepts of Howe and the elder Jarvis, who envisioned a day of unity for social change.

Today Mother’s Day is a $15 billion dollar industry. More flowers are sold for Mother’s Day than even Valentine’s Day. More cards are sent than for any other holiday but Christmas. And more people will eat out this evening than any other day of the year.

Whereas previous activists like Howe and Jarvis Sr. looked at Mothers’ Day from the point of view of a parent—as a day for mothers to unite against war and injustice to make the world safer for their children—the younger Jarvis never saw it that way. To Anna this day would always be a gift to her mother.

Anna Jarvis, the mother of Mother’s Day, had no children.

[Speaking of commercialism, you probably couldn’t spot Maia and her sisters in the sky, but the Pleiades constellation looks like this:

You might recognize it better as this:

subaru

Subaru is the Japanese name for the constellation. The auto manufacturer’s logo shows the six stars normally visible to the naked eye.]

Kentucky Derby

1st Saturday in May

…it’s a run for the roses
as fast as you can.
Your fate is delivered,
your moment’s at hand.
It’s the chance of a lifetime
in a lifetime of chance
And it’s high time you joined
in the dance.

Run For the Roses, Dan Fogelberg

Exterminator, winner of the 1918 Kentucky Derby

On the first Saturday in May, the eyes of the country are on a bunch of three year olds. For roughly two minutes.

Since 1875 the Kentucky Derby has showcased the fastest three year-old thoroughbred horses in the country. The Bluegrass region of Kentucky became known for American horse breeding back in the 18th century. Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr. conceived of the race after witnessing the Derbies of England and France on a European tour in the 1860s.

The Kentucky Derby is the first of the races that make up the U.S. Triple Crown, the other two being the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes. Eleven horses have won all three races of the Triple Crown. The first was Sir Barton in 1919. The last was Affirmed in 1978.

The Derby is often called the “Run for the Roses” because the winner receives 554 roses, not to mention a hefty cash prize.

Only three horses have run the 2.5 km Kentucky Derby in under two minutes. The most recent was Monarchos in 2001 at 1:59.97. The previous sub-two minute finisher was Sham, who completed the 2.5 km race in 1:59 and 4/5s seconds. (They didn’t time the race to hundredths of a second back in 1973.) Despite being the second fastest horse in Kentucky Derby history, Sham didn’t win the race.

Sham was racing against Secretariat, the horse ranked by ESPN as one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century. 1973 was the year Secretariat set the Kentucky Derby record that still stands to this day: 1:59 and 2/5’s seconds, barely edging out Sham in a race considered by many fans to be the greatest in the history of the sport.

Amazingly, Secretariat started out the 99th Kentucky Derby dead last. In fact, for much of the race, you can’t even see him in the TV footage. But he made a move unparalleled in Triple Crown history. He ran each length of the race faster than the last, overcoming his challengers one by one until finally beating out Sham.

After the Kentucky Derby, Secretariat went on to win the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes, and hence the U.S. Triple Crown, breaking a record at Belmont (2:24) that also still stands, and is the fastest race time ever recorded for 1 & 1/2 miles on dirt. His margin of victory in the Belmont Stakes (31 lengths) remains the largest cushion in Grade 1 stakes history.

Every year Derby fans wait to see if someone will match or even break Secretariat’s record. It hasn’t happened in the past 35 years, but it’s led at least one site to proclaim:

THE #1 RULE OF HORSERACING: NEVER INSERT SECRETARIAT’S NAME IN THE SAME SENTENCE WITH THE DERBY WINNER UNTIL AT LEAST TWO MORE RACES HAVE BEEN RUN. —http://www.angelfire.com/ky/secretariatfan/

This year [2009] the favorite is I Want Revenge at 3:1.
Update: I Want Revenge was removed from the race this morning on account of a “hot spot” (suspected wound) on his leg. Apparently, revenge will have to wait.

published May 2, 2009

Cinco de Mayo

May 5

Today we celebrate Mexican Independence Day!

Wait, no. That’s September 16.

Today we celebrate the birthday of Benito Juarez!

Uh, no, that’s March 21.

Constitution Day?

February 5.

Revolution Day?

November 20.

Flag Day?

February 24.

So what the heck is Cinco de Mayo!?

Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Which is when Mexico kicked their French booty all the way back to Paris.

Actually, no. Though the French lost the battle, they conquered Mexico City a year later and installed a puppet dictatorship under this Austrian dude:

Maximilian I

So remind me, why on earth do we celebrate Cinco de Mayo like it’s the Mexican 4th of July?

Well, first of all, the Mexicans don’t. Only the Americans do, and the people of Puebla, Mexico. Mexican banks are open today, as are schools, government buildings and just about everything else. There are no ad campaign blitzes featuring Corona, and no parades outside of Puebla. The reason Cinco de Mayo is celebrated so vigorously in El Norte is one of North America’s greatest mysteries.

Though not strategically significant, the Battle of Puebla was a powerful symbolic victory for Mexico in the 1860s. The Mexican-American War in the 1840s and the Mexican Civil War a decade later bankrupted the country. To get Mexico back on its feet, President Benito Juarez declared a two-year moratorium on payment of foreign debts. Creditors England, Spain and France did not take the news well. They decided to get back their money the old-fashioned way: they invaded.

Juarez was able to reach agreements with Spain and England, which went on their merry way, but France had other plans. Napoleon III wanted to rule Mexico by proxy, perhaps to make up for that teensy land sale known as the Louisiana Purchase.

The overconfident French army set out for the Mexican capital assured of an easy victory. 6,500 well-trained French troops met up with under 4,500 ill-equipped Mexican troops under General Ignacio Zaragoza near the city of Puebla. The French were so certain of their success, they attacked Zaragoza’s forces at their strongest point. The result was catastrophic. Zaragoza’s troops suffered minimal losses while inflicting heavy casualties on the French, even chasing them in retreat.

The battle provided a much needed boost to Mexican patriotism and morale by proving that a nation still on training wheels could defeat a European power with one of the strongest armies in the world.

The victory was short lived. After hearing of Puebla, Napoleon III diverted almost 30,000 troops to Mexico. Maximilian entered Mexico City the following year and was crowned Emperor.

The reason the holiday is so important to Chicanos in the United States may be because the war against the French represented the first collaboration between Mexico and the U.S. since the Mexican-American War. Mexican-American societies from Texas to California supported their former homeland with volunteers, money, and supplies. The Vienna-born Emperor Maximilian was ousted in 1867, and Benito Juarez, the Zapateco Amerindian peasant-turned-priest-turned-lawyer-turned-President, became leader of Mexico once more. But that’s a story for another day.

Benito Juarez

 

Workers Memorial Day

April 28

Today is a National Day of Mourning in Canada. Not for those killed in wars or natural disasters, but for those who made the fatal mistake of showing up to work.

Internationally the day is known as Workers Memorial Day. The date April 28 was chosen because it’s the anniversary of Canada’s Workmen’s Compensation Act, passed in 1914, which created the predecessor of today’s Workplace Safety & Insurance Board.

A random sampling of Canadians found that most had never heard of the National Day of Mourning, an effort by the Canadian Labour Congress to spread awareness of workplace safety. However, spokesperson Terry O’Connor believes the lack of safe working conditions is a growing problem in Canada.

“Canada continues to have one of the highest workplace fatality rates of any Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development country…In 2006, the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada reported 976 workplace fatalities in Canada, compared to 805 workplace fatalities in 1996 — an 18 per cent increase in a 10-year period.”

South of the border, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that fatal accidents on the job have declined since 1994 by 14%, while the number of people in the workforce has increased by the same amount. The most dangerous jobs in North America?

  • 10. Agricultural workers
  • 9. Truck Drivers/Drivers
  • 8. Roofers
  • 7. Electrical power line repairers
  • 6. Farmers & Ranchers
  • 5. Refuse collectors/recyclers
  • 4. Steel workers
  • 3. Loggers
  • 2. Pilots
  • And #1?

Fishermen.

Yes, that crab you bite into comes a steep price, and we’re not just talking money. The occupational-fatality rate for commercial fishing is over 20 times the national average.

17 Minutes That Changed America

Overall North American working conditions have greatly improved since Upton Sinclair wrote his scathing look at America’s meatpacking industry in The Jungle over 100 years ago. His aim was to raise awareness of the plight of exploited workers, many of them women and children in dangerous conditions for long hours and for the lowest of wages.

But the reading public cared more about what was going into their hot dogs (hint: you thought soylent green was nasty?…) than for the workers’ plight. When foreign sales of American meat products declined by 50%, Washington established the Food and Drug Administration to improve the food industry’s appalling standards.

It would take 146 deaths in a single day to spark outcry for legislation that would improve workplace safety.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Company, the “largest blouse-making operation in New York,” was located on Washington Place and Greene Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Each day 500 workers, mostly young immigrant girls, crowded into the factory. At 4:40 pm on March 25, a bin under a wooden desk on the eighth floor caught fire (most likely from a tossed cigarette).

When workers first spotted the flame they tried to put it out with water, but the scraps of cotton fabric in the bin—more flammable than paper—turned the flame into a conflagration within seconds. Panic struck the workers, and…

“those clustered at the Greene Street partition stampeded into the small opening, pushing and shouting and wrestling toward the stairway. Behind them, others in the factory saw this pileup and ran toward the opposite corner of the room, where they bottlenecked at the Washington Place elevators…”

One worker on the 8th floor managed to reach the secretary and swicthboard operator on the 10th floor via telephone.

Most of the tenth floor executive staff escaped by climbing onto the roof and into a taller adjacent building. But when the switchboard operator left her post, there was no way to call and warn the 9th floor workers, since all calls had to be routed through the 10th floor.

Of the 146 victims, 140 worked on the ninth floor.

Fire blocked the stairwell. The one flimsy fire escape collapsed. The owners had locked the ninth floor doors from the outside to make sure the girls didn’t steal.

The doors opened inward, so by the time they were unlocked, the doors were impossible to open because of the weight of dozens of screaming employees crushed against them, trying to escape.

The fire hoses on the top floors lacked adequate water pressure. The weight of escapees in the elevator immobilized the unit. One girl survived by jumping down the elevator shaft, landing atop the elevator on its last trip.

Over fifty workers jumped out the windows of the 9th floor rather than be consumed by fire. When the last one jumped to her death it was 4:57.

These tragic seventeen minutes–and the furor that followed–laid the foundation for sweeping changes in the labor movement that continue to protect workers to this day.

Below is a list of those killed in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911. It was compiled by David Von Drehle, author of Triangle: The Fire That Changed America.

  • Lizzie Adler, 24
  • Anna Altman, 16
  • Anna Ardito, 25
  • Rosie Bassino, 31
  • Vincenza Bellota, 16
  • Ignazia Bellotta,
  • Vincenza Benenti, 22
  • Essie Bernsetin, 19
  • Jacob Bernstein, 28
  • Morris Bernstein, 19
  • Gussie Bierman, 22
  • Abraham Binevitz, 20
  • Rosie Brenman
  • Surka (Sarah) Brenman
  • Ida Brodsky, 16
  • Sarah Brodsky, 16
  • Ida (Ada) Brooks, 18
  • Laura Brunette, 17
  • Frances Caputto, 17
  • Josephine Carlisi, 31
  • Albina Caruso, 20
  • Josie Castello, 21
  • Rosie Cirrito, 18
  • Anna Cohen, 25
  • Antonia (Annie) Colletti, 30
  • Dora Dochman, 19
  • Kalman Downic, 24
  • Celia Eisenberg, 17
  • Rebecca Feibisch, 17 or 18
  • Yetta Fichtenhultz, 18
  • Daisy Lopez Fitze, 24
  • Tina Frank, 17
  • Rosie Freedman, 18
  • Molly Gerstein, 17
  • Celina Gettlin, 17
  • Esther Goldstein, 20
  • Lena Goldstein, 23
  • Mary Goldstein, 18
  • Yetta Goldstein, 20
  • Irene Grameatassio, 24
  • Bertha Greb, 25
  • Dinah Greenberg, 18
  • Rachel Grossman, 17
  • Rosie Grosso, 16
  • Esther Harris, 21
  • Mary Herman, 40
  • Esther Hochfield, 22
  • Fannie Hollander, 18
  • Pauline Horowitz, 19
  • Ida Jakofsky, 18
  • Augusta (Tessie) Kaplan, 18
  • Becky Kappelman, 18
  • Ida Kenowitz, 18
  • Becky Kessler, 19
  • Jacob Klein, 28
  • Bertha Kuhler, 20
  • Tillie Kupfersmith, 16
  • Sarah Kupla, 16
  • Benjamin (Benny) Kuritz, 19
  • Annie L’Abbato, 16
  • Fannie Lansner, 21
  • Mary Laventhal, 22
  • Jennie Lederman, 20
  • Nettie Lefkowitz, 23
  • Max Lehrer, 22
  • Sam Lehrer, 19
  • Kate Leone, 14
  • Rosie Lermarck, 19
  • Jennie Levin, 19
  • Pauline Levine, 19
  • Catherine Maltese, mother of Lucy & Sara
  • Lucia (Lucy) Maltese, 20
  • Rosaria (Sara) Maltese, 14
  • Maria Manara, 27
  • Bertha Manders, 22
  • Rose Manofsky, 22
  • Michela (Mechi) Marciano, 20
  • Yetta Meyers, 19
  • Bettina Miale, 18
  • Frances Miale, 21
  • Gaetana Midolo, 16
  • Becky Nebrerer, 19
  • Annie Nicholas, 18
  • Nicolina Nicolosci, 21 or 22
  • Annie Novobritsky, 20
  • Sadie Nussbaum, 18
  • Julia Oberstein, 19
  • Rose Oringer, 20
  • Becky Ostrowsky, 20
  • Carrie Ozzo, 22
  • Annie Pack, 18
  • Providencia Panno, 43
  • Antonietta Pasqualicca, 16
  • Ida Pearl, 20
  • Jennie Pildescu, 1
  • Millie Prato, 21
  • Becky Reivers, 19
  • Emma Rootstein
  • Israel Rosen, 17
  • Julia Rosen, 35, mother of Israel
  • Louis Rosen, 38
  • Yetta Rosenbaum, 22
  • Jennie Rosenberg, 21
  • Gussie Rosenfeld, 22
  • Nettie Rosenthal, 21
  • Theodore (Teddy) Rothner, 22
  • Sarah Sabasowitz, 17
  • Serephina (Sara) Saracino, 25
  • Teraphen (Tessie) Saracino, 20
  • Gussie Schiffman, 18
  • Theresa (Rose) Schmidt, 32
  • Ethel Schneider, 30
  • Violet Schochep, 21
  • Margaret Schwart, 24
  • Jacob Selzer, 33
  • Annie Semmilo, 30
  • Rosie Shapiro, 17
  • Beryl (Ben) Sklaver, 25
  • Rosie Sorkin, 18
  • Gussie Spunt, 19
  • Annie Starr, 30
  • Jennie Stellino, 16
  • Jennie Stern, 18
  • Jennie Stiglitz, 22
  • Samuel Tabick, 18
  • Clotilde Terdanova, 22
  • Isabella Tortorella, 17
  • Mary Ullo, 26
  • Meyer Utal, 23
  • Freda Velakowsky, 20
  • Bessie Viviano, 15
  • Rose Weiner, 23
  • Celia (Sally) Weintraub, 17
  • Dora Welfowitz, 21
  • Joseph Wilson, 21
  • Tessie Wisner, 21
  • Sonia Wisotsky, 17
  • Bertha Wondross, 18

A covered pier had to be converted to a makeshift morgue to make room for the bodies.

The factory’s owners were charged with manslaughter.

And were acquitted.