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8. Eating Smoke: Rational Heroes in the Twentieth Century
- Johns Hopkins University Press
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c h a p t e r e i g h t Eating Smoke Rational Heroes in the Twentieth Century When St. Louis firefighters arrived at the Simmons Hardware Company in the summer of 1911, no smoke or flames were visible from the street, but below ground in a basement vault a mixture of hay and excelsior sat smoldering. Fire- fighters entered the building looking for the blaze, and they discovered acrid smoke emanating from the basement, up elevator shafts. As quickly as they began to enter the basement, with nozzles blasting water, they began to drop, one by one, from the fumes. Thousands of the city’s residents watched the “weird scene”; smoke slowly seeped from the building and waves of firefighters entered the building, only to be dragged out moments later by their comrades. Gradually, the smoke thickened and billowed; ambulances arrived to care for firefighters—ten or twelve of whom sat gasping on the sidewalk at any given time. The department’s chief, Charles Swingley, became “annoyed at the failure of the men to penetrate the basement .” He entered the fray. But, he too was soon carried out. Gradually, a strategy emerged from the chaos; newspapers reported, “the ‘smoke-eaters’ of the department , the veterans at combating such conflagrations, were sent first, and others wearing face masks held the nozzle into the vault.” Firefighters worked in relays of five-minute shifts, entering and exiting the basement, where the water became so deep that they feared drowning. By the next morning, when the blaze was finally under control, nearly seventy firemen had been overcome, some more than once, including Chief Swingley. The Post-Dispatch reported that “until he was carried out the sixth time, and went to the City Dispensary, [Swingley] refused to admit that he had found a new thing in firefighting.”1 Although the calculations of underwriters and fire prevention campaigns made headway in the battle against fire, firemen remained the most visible standard of safety in American cities. In fact, fire insurers sought firemen out as advocates to visit schools during fire prevention week, on the premise that “a fireman in uniform is a hero to the average child.” The apparent simplicity with which children viewed firefighters belied the reality of their work lives. Firefighting was growing yet more complex in the twentieth century, as shifting urban environments continued to generate new hazards—automobiles, chemicals, and new construction materials—and contained more familiar threats, such as falling walls, electrical wires, and tall buildings. Facing mounting dangers, firefighters reorganized their work, created extensive training regimens, and introduced new technological tools and techniques. In a culture obsessed with technology, firefighters transformed themselves, at least rhetorically, into an efficient machine. By the 1930s the advent of rescue squads in Philadelphia and other cities signaled that a more constrained professional heroism was developing among firemen—one that became more rulebound and tied to technological acumen and teamwork. Though they emphasized the rational and technological, they nonetheless continued to identify saving lives as the single most important facet of their service. Indeed, the ideal of the male hero crossing a flaming threshold, baby in hand, disappeared neither from popular culture nor from fire engine houses. And firefighters continued to define their service on a continuum—between the physical and technological, between individual acts of courage and brotherhood.2 With support of political reformers and the insurance industry, firefighters once again remade their service. As fire department leaders negotiated the rocky world of Progressive politics, they produced extensive changes, consistent with the recommendations of professionalism made by the International Association of Fire Engineers (IAFE.) Department leaders demanded that the urban technological infrastructure be updated, and bureaucratic structures be streamlined, and they established formal firefighting work procedures and rules. As firefighting became highly regular and standardized, firefighters thrived. They acquired more routine careers, better pay, improved working conditions—all without losing status as popular icons. Even so, the new administrative regimens circumscribed the power and eroded the cohesive culture of firemen’s small all-male work groups. Wherever one looked in the 1930s—in engine houses, on fire grounds, in training 286 Paper [54.221.110.87] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:42 GMT) Rational Heroes in the Twentieth Century 287 schools, and administrative offices—departments emphasized technology, efficiency of action and procedure, and sober work discipline. Significantly, the new work...