Non-Fiction: The Triangle Shirtwaist Tragedy and the Origins of Modern Charity

Lectures and conversations with historians, authors, and thinkers.

Fire in the Heart of the City details the riveting story of what happened when a tragic fire in Greenwich Village threw Adolph Ochs, the ambitious new publisher of the New York Times, and Rose Schneiderman, a defiant young labor organizer, against each other in a momentous conflict. Following the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire―the worst disaster New York City had ever experienced up to that point―a significant feud emerged between New York’s wealthy elite and labor rights’ activists over who should organize the city's response: a nascent charity sector led by the city's wealthiest bankers or the reform-focused unions of Lower Manhattan. Fire in the Heart of the City is an absorbing portrait of an extraordinary moment in the formation of modern American charity, casting new light on its profoundly dangerous and misunderstood legacy.

David Conrad-Pérez is a historian and former journalist whose work examines the forces that shape the media, philanthropy, and public life. He serves as research director for the Center for Media & Social Impact at American University. A former producer for New York Public Radio’s On the Media and Public Radio International’s The World, he has also written for The New York Times, Reuters, and Columbia Journalism Review. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.