Catie Marx (hour 4) November 15, 2013 Process Paper When I heard that the topic for National

History Day was Rights and Responsibilities in History I first thought of workers rights. Throughout the world, we have struggled with coming to an agreement on work and labor rights and the responsibility that employers have to their employees. I thought about certain events in the United States history that had a major impact on this topic, and what came to mind was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory of 1911. I remember learning about it in history in middle school and it was an even that had stuck with me from then on. I did a little research to see how the fire left its mark in the history of labor and I saw that it helped lead to the creation of the National Labor Relations Act. For research I just started by going on Google and looking up the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and also the National Labor Relations Act. I was able to access newspaper articles from 1911 from the day after the event to present time. Also I watched a documentary on the fire that discussed details of the factory before, during and after the fire. I had access to a variety of primary and secondary sources. Cornell University had an entire website dedicated to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and was the main place I looked for information because within it, there were a variety of sources, including interviews with workers from the factory. I created a website and I created it by first deciding a color scheme and layout that would fit the event that I had selected. Before I started developing my website, I had typed out all of my pages and selected my photographs so I was prepared and was just having to type everything in to my website and make decisions on the appearance of the

website. I spent a few hours working on my website each night laying it out on paper and typing it all out before actually creating the website. My choice of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and the National Labor Relations Act relates to the overall theme, Rights and Responsibilities, of National History Day because it is centered on the rights of employees and the responsibility of employers to maintain these. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire led to a change in the United States, it helped people realize that workers need safe working environments, have to have a maximum hour workday and that they should be able to form unions with each other. The National Labor Relations Act ties into this because it is one of the major Congressional changes made to solidify what has been said about what workers deserve.