Maggie Canavan – Third Generation in Threads of Courage by Linda Harris Sittig

Maggie Canavan only heard about the sweatshops of Greenwich Village when she read this newspaper article on the infamous Triangle Factory fire.

On a chilly March morning in 1911, 146 young women left their tenements in New York’s Lower East Side and walked several blocks west to Greenwich Village, where they were employed by the Triangle Shirtwaist Company.

They were young immigrants, all grateful for a job in America where they worked 10-hour days for a sweatshop salary of $4.00 a week.  Together, they moved in groups into the two freight elevators, which transported them to the 8^th and 9^th floors of the Triangle Factory. It was a Saturday.

Now, imagine a school cafeteria. That space is approximately the same square footage as the Triangle workroom. Each workroom is filled with continuous rows of long wooden tables and girls crammed shoulder to shoulder on both sides. Some girls are pinning patterns, others are cutting bolts of fabric, and some are sewing at machines. The click-clacking of the sewing machines drowns out the hum of the girls’ voices.

Under all the tables are large bins overflowing with highly flammable cotton scraps. Above the tables, thin tissue paper patterns hang from the ceiling like undulating rows of prom decorations. Only two exit doors exist, and one is permanently locked so the girls can’t sneak out to take an extra bathroom break.

At 4:50 pm, the closing bell rings, signifying for the girls to stop work and clean up their stations. What happens next is never documented, but someone, a floor supervisor perhaps, flips the stub of a glowing cigarette to the floor, but it falls into a scrap bin instead.

Within minutes the scraps catch fire, and the flames reach upward to the wooden tables. Next, the tables and the cotton bolts begin to burn, and tongues of flames shoot upward to the tissue paper patterns.

Within 10 minutes, the entire workroom is engulfed. Panic sets in and the girls rush for the main exit door, which has been narrowed to allow only one person at a time to leave.

But with almost 180 people in the room, the possibility of escape is slim. As the fire turns into a raging inferno, the remaining girls have a choice: stay and burn to death or jump out the windows. 62 rush to the windows and leap. None survive.

When a final body count is conducted, 84 victims died from burns, smoke inhalation, or being suffocated, and 62 lie dead on the sidewalk outside.

Seven years later, when Maggie moves to Greenwich Village for a summer job, she is drawn to find the site of the old Triangle Factory. She stands in front of the building, imaging the terror of the 146 girls who lost their lives in the fire, and she feels goosebumps; somehow, she should be an advocate for other sweatshop girls. She doesn’t yet know how.

As she turns to leave, one solitary crow lands on the nearby street sign. It glares at her with its beady eyes, as if to say, “You’re an outsider, and you don’t belong here.”

Shaken, she leaves, not realizing what the future holds in store.

That is the premise that starts my newest novel, Counting Crows, and the third in the “Threads of Courage” series. If you read book #1, Cut From Strong Cloth, you met Maggie’s grandparents. If you read book #2, Last Curtain Call, you met Maggie’s parents.

In Book #3, Counting Crows, you will become immersed in the bohemian lifestyle that Maggie discovers while living in Greenwich Village in 1918. During her stay, she will celebrate the end of the Great War (WWI), live through the devastation of the flu pandemic that kills 33,000, and doggedly attempt to right the wrongs of at least one insidious sweatshop.

The characters and events are all based on the real people who lived and worked in the Village and left their mark. Val Fox, an artist, Mary Simkovitch, manager of a settlement house, Crystal Eastman, a prominent feminist, Jessie Beals, a photographer, and Gladys, the old woman in the park.

I hope you celebrate when Maggie falls in love, wince when her heart gets broken, and understand why she believes love will never come again.

Most importantly, I hope you will applaud the strong young woman she becomes when she refuses to give up and learns that life is not always fair, but it is worth living.

What is Counting Crows? It is an old Irish superstition. “One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth. Five for silver, six for gold, and seven for a secret that can never be told.” But you’ll have to read the book to figure it out for yourself.

Counting Crows is available from Freedom Forge, Inc., bookstores, and online at www.bit.ly/36fMZJQ.

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~ Linda