In The Triangle Fire: A Brief History with Documents, Jo Ann E. Argersinger both practices and teaches the historian’s craft. Historians examine and use sources to create historical narratives that at the same time interpret and explain history according to their particular perspectives.

Argersinger effectively employs both primary and secondary sources in her introductory history of the Triangle fire. Primary sources—records created at the time of the event in question, often by participants or witnesses but also by other contemporaries—form that backbone of her narrative. Argersinger weaves information from the book’s documentary sources into her history, such as when she refers to McFarlane’s article to describe “loft” industries and to Goodman and Ueland’s study to explain the contractor system.

Argersinger also incorporates primary sources not found in the book’s document selection, quoting Pauline Newman, the worker and labor activist, on her experiences working at Triangle. Newman offers firsthand details that enhance the narrative and make it more vivid and engaging, like the sign above Triangle’s elevator that proclaimed, “If You Don’t Come In On Sunday, Don’t Come In On Monday.” Such a detail provides a clearer picture of the owners’ attitude towards overtime and worker compliance than any amount of interpretation.

Historians, however, must also use secondary sources—accounts written by later figures, especially other historians—to fill in gaps in their own narratives and interpretations and to present a broad, informative picture of the event and the scholarship surrounding it. Argersinger cites several such sources, including studies like Nancy Schrom Dye’s As Equals and As Sisters, Caroline Rennolds Milbanks’s New York Fashion, and David Von Drehle’s Triangle: The Fire That Changed America. Argersinger is thorough in her research, and her bibliography lists dozens of sources for further reference.

The document selection of The Triangle Fire includes a wide variety of sources, from newspaper articles to firsthand accounts of fire victims and witnesses to Red Cross relief reports. Such a collection offers varying perspectives that explore different aspects of the Triangle tragedy and its context, thereby providing a fuller picture of the event than readers might otherwise have received. Historians realize that not all sources are completely accurate or objective. For example, Louise C. Odencrantz mistakenly says that the Triangle fire occurred in 1912, and Triangle owners Harris and Blanck are intent upon absolving themselves of blame in their March 26, 1911, New York Timesinterview. This is why historians approach sources with a critical eye and are careful when comparing them to other accounts and fitting them into the broader picture of the event.

That broader picture then becomes a historical narrative. History is, after all, a story, and Argersinger writes a thorough narrative in her introductory chapter. She relates the tales of the garment industry, the fight for unionization and reform, the fire itself, and the changes stimulated by the fire in one coherent narrative that carries readers along smoothly. Her account both informs the mind (with statistics and explanations about the garment industry, for instance) and touches the emotions (with descriptions about the workers’ difficult lives and unsafe working conditions). It can be argued that an effective historical narrative teaches history in such a way that readers are hardly aware they are learning history, and Argersinger accomplishes this.

History is not all narrative, however. Historians draw out a story’s meaning by interpreting historical events. Argersinger does this by organizing her narrative around a thesis and employing arguments and evidence in support of that thesis. Argersinger’s thesis appears in the title of her introductory chapter: “The Fire That Changed America.” The Triangle fire, she argues, engendered...