Uprising

At the union hall, a male official announces a new proposal from the shirtwaist manufacturers. He claims the package is generous, with “shorter hours, fairer wages” (177), four paid holidays a year, and no more petty fines and charges, but no promise of union recognition. Yetta protests along with other strikers who want a “closed shop,” wherein the bosses only hire union members. The union official urges them to make the best of circumstances, but the strikers proclaim this was not the offer they’ve been fighting for.

Yetta and Bella note how excited everyone was at the meeting, but Rahel says it was “like a riot of skeletons” (179). Yetta holds out hope for the rally at Carnegie Hall as a chance to earn more money. Unfortunately, Carnegie Hall is a bust. Rich people grumble that the cause is now too radical, that “those socialists are deluding those poor girls” (180).

Jane sees Yetta at the rally and says she’s been trying to come out, but Miss Millhouse has her under lock and key. As they are separated from her by the surging crowd, Yetta becomes depressed by her statement” “If a girl like Jane could be kept under lock and key, what hope was there for a girl like Yetta?” (181).

February comes and Yetta grows sick from malnourishment. Rahel tells Yetta that the strike is over. The union leaders settle for higher wages and shorter hours, but not a closed shop. Rahel announces that she is going to marry Mr. Cohen from her English class. Yetta doesn’t even remember him and asks if Rahel loves him. Rahel is practical and extolls his handsomeness, his English, his grocery business, and suggests that maybe they could hire Yetta so she doesn’t have to work in the factory (184). Angrily, Yetta asks, “Are you a revolutionary or not,” to which Rahel replies, “I was always a better revolutionary in your mind than in reality” (185). Rahel admits to Yetta that she left Russia not for political reasons, but because of the pogrom.

Yetta refuses to live with Rahel and work in the store. She says she will stay with Bella because she’s devoted to this cause. Rahel pleads with her to go to one of the shops that settled early instead of working for The Triangle, but Yetta says she must go back to The Triangle because she’s “not done fighting there” (188).

Jane realizes she is “a very rich girl, but she [has] no money” (189) that she can control. In desperation, Jane tries to get Mr. Corrigan to sneak food from the kitchen or use his money to buy coats. Mr. Corrigan explains that he can’t put his own family of seven children at risk.

When her father returns, Jane tries to persuade him to donate money to the strike. Jane’s father replies that she’s “fallen in with a dangerous, socialist crowd” (194). Jane’s father says that girls shouldn’t be walking picket lines or even working in factories, believing their fathers and husbands should support them. He speaks disdainfully of “the Jews”, and when Jane protests that they aren’t all Jewish, “They’re Italian, Irish…” (195), he dismisses them as “immigrants” and explains that he’s hired “strikebreakers” (196) himself. Jane is appalled, but her father insists that’s how the world works. Enraged, Jane trudges away in the snow wearing a blanket as a coat.

Jane walks to Eleanor’s house, where she finds Eleanor sitting in a ballgown while maids fuss with her hair. Jane bemoans that everything her father uses, both strikebreakers and the money he’s earned, is “tainted” (200). When Jane asks Eleanor if her father has also hired strikebreakers, she glibly replies, “oh probably” (200). Jane understands that Eleanor plays a game with her father, letting him think she agrees with him because she feels she doesn’t have another choice.

Eleanor advises Jane to go back home and charm her father so she can get what she wants in the long run. When Jane tells her she walked, Eleanor orders her chauffeur to drive Jane home. Instead of giving her home address to the chauffeur, Jane gives him the address of The Triangle. 

Bella and Yetta encounter Jane on their walk home from work. Jane tells them she came to help with the strike. Yetta replies that the strike is over. Jane expresses bitterness about her father’s hiring of strikebreakers. Yetta marvels that Jane ran away for their strike. She and Bella offer to take Jane home with them.

As Yetta sews, she restlessly contemplates her regrets, wondering whether she should’ve been kinder to Rahel, whether she should’ve come back to the Triangle, and whether she could’ve tried harder during the strike. She feels a strong urge to do something, but she has no power or money to do anything. She remembers the prostitute who said, “In America, money is God.”

Now, Yetta works on the 8th floor, with the fabric cutters. The cutters frequently smoke and they are careless with how they dispose of their cigarettes. Yetta doesn’t like the cutters on principle because last summer, they beat up the contractor who called for the strike.

One of the cutters seems to have a crush on Yetta. He approaches her about the “rich girl” (209) living with her. Yetta defends Jane, but internally contemplates that Jane doesn’t seem aware “that the potatoes she [eats] cost money” (209).

The cutter says she should tell the rich girl to get a job. He shares that Mr. Blanck is seeking a governess for his daughters. He introduces himself as Jacob. Yetta asks where he was during the strike. Jacob says he just got a job at The Triangle, but Yetta is skeptical.

Jane imagines what Miss Millhouse would say if she saw the dingy place where she, Bella, and Yetta live. Jane is getting dirty herself, now that she only has one dress that she wears both night and day.

Jane goes out into streets for some fresh air. She is shocked by the filth and poverty she encounters, including a group of ragged children and a young girl with a horrible eye infection. A child attempts to steal her mother’s gold ring and Jane races back to house. When Bella and Yetta return, Jane says she needs her own money. The girls divulge how little they make and Jane realizes that she’s a burden, that she has always been confused about money. Yetta urges her to earn her own money so she can spend it however she wants. Jane bemoans her lack of courage and practical skills, admitting that she was “raised to be totally dependent on others” (217).

Yetta tells Jane about the governess job working for Mr. Blanck. Jane is initially hesitant, saying, “Oh, my heavens. You want me to be Miss Millhouse” (218). Yetta suggests that she can be a subversive governess, secretly teaching Mr. Blanck’s daughter all the skills she wishes someone had taught her. Between Jane’s old blue serge dress and a borrowed hat from a neighbor down the hall, they attempt to make Jane presentable for her job interview.

Jane meets Mrs. Blanck at her home, where she introduces herself in French as Mademoiselle Michaud. Mrs. Blanck is impressed. She herself has a Russian accent. She expresses that she and her husband were not born to money: “Most of our lives have been struggle, struggle, struggle” (225). She introduces Jane to her daughters: a shy adolescent named Millicent and a mischievous five-year-old named Harriet. Jane notices Harriet wriggling in her itchy lace sleeves and recalls herself at that age.