See You in the Streets
“Ninety years before 9/11, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire also destroyed a building in lower Manhattan, also led people to leap to their deaths rather than burn alive, but the culprit in the earlier case wasn’t terrorists, unless you bestow that name on ruthless employers. Ruth Sergel’s moving, riveting, and important book reminds us that ‘in 2011, the year of the Triangle Fire Centennial, 17 people in the United States were killed by terrorism, while 4,609 died in workplace accidents.’”
—Rebecca Solnit, author, The Faraway Nearby
“Ruth Sergel has been ahead of the curve for years and this book proves it. We should listen very carefully to what she wants to do next!”
—Frida Kahlo, founding member, Guerrilla Girls
“In this passionate book, Sergel, a remarkable activist and artist, writes eloquently about one of history’s worst workplace tragedies—the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911. Sergel also explains how art can be used ingeniously to keep memories of that tragedy alive so that we in the twenty-first century never forget the hugely important lessons to be drawn from it.”
—Steven Greenhouse, author, The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker
“The 2011 centennial commemoration of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire led by Ruth Sergel was among the most successful unions of art and social justice I have yet to witness in my thirty-year career. Beautifully written, See You in the Streets offers new generations of social and cultural activist insight into this magnificent model program and ways to utilize the ‘unexpected beauty’ in the world toward social justice.”
—Steve Zeitlin, Founding Director, City Lore
Table of contents
Welcome
The Fire
Chalk
Craft
Voices of 9.11
Start Your Engines
Solidarity
Radical Tolerance
Fair Exchange
Leadership
Difficult Memory
Memorial
Sustainability
Acts of Return
The Centennial (Utopia)
See You in the Streets
Appendix
The book includes essays by:
Suzanne Pred Bass, Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, Cheryl Beredo, May Y. Chen, Esther Cohen, Richard A. Greenwald, Sherry Kane, Annie Lanzillotto, LuLu LoLo, Annelise Orleck, Kaushik Panchal, Emma Rosenthal, Elissa Sampson, Andi Sosin + Joel Sosinsky, Ellen Wiley Todd, Mary Anne Trasciatti and Sheryl Woodruff. The introduction is by Anne Valk.
Photographs:
Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, Roy Campolongo, Nathan Farb, Diane Fortuna, Alfonso Guerriero + the Young Historians of PS 126, Heidi Gutman, Marjorie Ingall, Scott Jackson + his class at the Brooklyn International High School, Phyllis Kestenbaum, Serphin + Vincent Maltese, Gary Meister, RJ Mikelson (for Workers United), Shelley Jacobs Mintz, Ileana Montalvo and Vivian Sorenson.
See You in the Streets is a part of the Humanities and Public Life series at the University of Iowa Press edited by Anne Valk and Teresa Mangum. Catherine Cocks: acquisitions editor, Susan Hill Newton: managing editor, Karen Copp: production manager, Rebecca Marsh: copy editor, Laurie Pendergast: index editor, James McCoy: director.
Heartfelt thanks to all who made this book possible.
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