Hair Rats and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Tuesday, March 25, 1911: I did a wee bit of work this morning. This afternoon I manufactured a rat, it’s quite harmless though, and of course I tried its effect, but it didn’t agree with my fastidious sister. I’m not sure whether I’ll wear it very much now or not.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Today Grandma is focused on her own small world. How can she make her hair look better? . . .and would a hair “rat” be the solution to her problems? Yet a horrific event was taking place less than 200 miles away in New York City–the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

(Please forgive me if this post just doesn’t work. Somehow things as trivial as a hair rat and as consequential as the fire don’t seem like they should be mixed together–but the diary entry seemed like it needed an explanation and the fire is just too important to ignore. )

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

A hundred years ago today 146 people, mostly young women, died when the building they worked in caught fire. The factory was on the ninth floor and some doors may have been locked to keep the women from stealing or sneaking out to take breaks.

The nation (including central Pennsylvania) was horrified by this disaster. A hundred years ago the small towns that dotted the Pennsylvania landscape were filled with factories that–like the Triangle Factory–sometimes had poor working conditions. An outcome of the fire was a mass outcry for better working conditions. This led to more support for unions and the passage of industrial safety laws that improved working conditions for all.

If you are interested in learning more about the fire and its outcomes, the Kheel Center at Cornell University has a really nice remembrance site with lots of photos and survivor interviews.

Triangle.fire — Triangle Shirt Factory Fire--March 25, 1911 (photographer unknown)

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Hair Rats

A ‘rat’ was used to make it look like a person had more hair than she really had. A rat (which was made out of one’s own hair) was tucked under hair when it was pinned up to make it look puffier.

Grandma would have collected her own hair by gathering shed hair that had accumulated in her brush. When she had enough hair she would have rolled it into an oblong and then placed it into a small piece of hair netting. A few stitches would have then held it all together.

Grandma must have been trying to create a stylish hairdo—I wonder if she ever actually used the rat since her sister apparently made fun of how she looked.

The Play Was Interesting . . . Or Not

16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Friday, March 24, 1911: Ruth and I went to a play tonight or rather I went with her. Carrie Stout went along with us. It was up at the Town Hall, given by the senior class of Turbotville. I thought it was very interesting, but Rufus didn’t agree or didn’t seem to agree. I suppose by that she wanted it distinctly understood that her queenly presence had attended many better plays than that insignificant one.

Self-Flattery

15-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Sunday, March 19, 1911: I went to Sunday school and church this morning. I saw such a pretty baby today with a head fairly covered with thick auburn hair. It struck me that I looked something like that baby when I was about her age. I had so much hair then with a bit of waviness in it, and dimples in my smiling cheeks, but this is enough flattery for one night. I must scratch gravel off and to bed, and to my sweet beautiful dreams, so vivid and real.

Current Events: March 16, 1911

15-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Thursday, March 16, 1911: It has been so biting cold today. We all crowded around the stove at school this morning, and about all I did was to shiver for I couldn’t study. Well I am shivering now, this room is rather cold. I must hurry off to bed.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

I’ve seen several lists of events that occurred during 1911. Two things of note happened exactly 100 years ago today:

(1) Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele was born in Bavaria (Germany) on March 16, 1911. He was the physician responsible for many deaths at the Auschwitz-Birkenau prison camp during World War II, and is sometimes called the “Angel of Death”. World War II seems like it happened very, very long ago. It’s kind of amazing that an infamous figure in that war was just an infant a 100 years ago. Mengele would have only been in his early 30s during the war—I don’t think that I ever thought about his age before, but I had pictured him being older.

(2) The city of Las Vegas was incorporated on March 16, 1911. It is the largest city founded during the 20th century in the U.S. It’s hard to imagine how parts of the west were still the “wild west” a hundred years ago–though I guess in a different way, today Las Vegas still is the wild west.

Neither of these events would have been news outside of their local community in 1911. Only subsequent events many years later made them become history timeline material.

Report Card–Grades Wonderful!

15-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Wednesday, March 15, 1911: It snowed last night, and the trees were covered thick with snow. My, but it was an exquisite night, but it soon vanished, for by noon the trees were as bare as ever. We got our reports cards today. Some of my marks were something wonderful. As a whole I seem to be a wonderful girl and something out of the ordinary.

Role of Churches in Rural Revitalization

15-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Sunday, March 12, 1911: Tweet slept with me last night. I was rather restless. Don’t know whether she was the cause or not. This afternoon I went to Sunday school and church, staid for catechize. Besse and Curt were out this afternoon. I guess they just happened to come because we had some ice cream left from dinner.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Grandma faithfully attends Sunday school in the diary. I’m still trying to figure out why the Baptist Church in McEwensville which Grandma apparently attended closed and vanished from the scene a few years later (See February 5 entry).

The Baptist church building was demolished years ago, but it was located somewhere in this section of Main Street.

There were many different denominations and ethnically-based churches scattered across rural America a hundred years ago. And memories were still strong of the ancestors who had migrated to the United States for religious reasons. Those who traced their ancestry to Germany often attended a Lutheran or Baptist church. The Scot-Irish generally were Presbyterian and so on.

There were a number of church closures early in the 20th century and the McEwensville Baptist probably was caught up in those closures. As the older generation passed on–and the differences across the various protestant denominations seemed less clear to younger people–many tiny, struggling rural churches closed.

Also, in 1911 national leaders in the United States believed that there was a “rural problem” because so many rural youth were migrating into the cities. The Country Life Commission published a plan for revitalizing the countryside a hundred years ago. The Commission believed that little rural churches with few social activities and members who bickered with members of neighboring churches were part of the problem with rural life—but that churches had a role in revitalizing rural America. (I’ve heard elderly people say that in the old days you knew people didn’t get along if there were more churches in a town than bars.)

The present system of little struggling churches involves great financial and moral waste, divides rural people instead of uniting them. . . Still, federation and cooperation embody the dominant spirit of the age we are now entering . . .

If the church is to play any important part in rural reorganization, it must evolve a program for social betterment and make its ministrations such as will enable it to render effective social service. Only a giving church is a growing church. There are many real needs of rural people which today call for ministration, and the church should set itself the task of finding these and trying to serve them.

Rural Life and Education: A Study of the Rural-School Problem as a Phase of the Rural-Life Problem (1914) by Ellwood Cubberley

That said, in 1911 the McEwensville Baptist Church seems to be meeting Grandma’s needs. She mentions attending church or Sunday school every week in her diary.

Nicknames

15-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Saturday, March 11, 1911: I had to bustle around and do some work today. I did most of it this forenoon and too a rest this afternoon. Helen Wesner alias Tweet was coming down to go along with Rufus to a play at W. tonight and I poor kid had to stay at home.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

This is the first time in the diary that Grandma referred to Helen Wesner as Tweet—though she’s previously mentioned her. (And, be sure to see the Tweet ‘Tweeting’ posting.)

Grandma calls her sister Ruth Rufus in this entry. Both Ruth and Helen were three years older than Grandma. W. probably refers to the nearby town of Watsontown.