Composer Julia Wolfe sought the right scissors — dozens of pairs — for the New York Philharmonic’s 1919 premiere of her oratorio “Fire in My Mouth,” which commemorates the 1911 Triangle Waist Company fire that killed 146 garment workers, most of them young immigrant women. Wiss manufactured the scissors that made the satisfying “swoosh” sound Wolfe wanted to memorialize their work and death. Read about a survivor of the fire and her daughter in the novel Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
