Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Forward 50 2011

Michael Hirsch

When historian Michael Hirsch set out on a quest to identify the last six victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, he had no idea that he was facing four years of painstaking research. To complete the list of the 146 victims of the 1911 fire, Hirsch read microfilm from New York City newspapers of the era, searching for clues to the six who had been buried as unknowns. He visited victims’ graves in 16 cemeteries and read every death certificate — three times — that was filed in the city during the two months after the fire.

His dogged research paid off, and Hirsch, 50, was able to reveal the last six names in a film he co-produced for HBO on Demand called “Triangle: The Unidentified.” The airing of the film was just one of the hundreds of events staged across the nation marking the 100th anniversary of the fire. Near Washington Square, a rally organized by labor unions drew thousands of people. Alluding to the largely Jewish and Italian immigrant workers who perished, U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis told the crowd, “We are reminded that we must always protect our most vulnerable workers.”

Thanks to Hirsch’s efforts, the annual reading aloud of the victims’ names this year, for the first time, included the previously unknown: Max Florin, Concetta Prestifilippo, Fannie Rosen, Dora Evans, Josephine Cammarata and Maria Lauletti. Hirsch, meanwhile, is continuing his research into the fire and sharing what he discovers with the families. “We are all retelling this Jewish story,” he said.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.