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.