Women's History Month No. 27

So, it was on the 25th of March, 1911, my grandmother's 18th birthday that a dreadful thing happened. Had she been born into different circumstances, she might well have been one of the 146 people - mostly women and teenaged girls - who jumped to their deaths or were burned to death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, not able to get out. The bosses had locked the doors, lest the seamstresses be tempted to steal one of those pleated tops they constructed.

As I recall, Frances Perkins

was there that day, among many who never forgot what she saw that day. Later she would become the first woman to be appointed as Secretary of Labor, in FDR's Presidency. One of her many missions? Reducing accidents in the workplace.

After all, you shouldn't have to risk your life to earn your daily bread - though people do that each and every day in the world.