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The great chicago fire of 1871 informative essay
The great chicago fire of 1871 informative essay
The great chicago fire of 1871 essay
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The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was one of the largest disasters in American history. Practically overnight the great city of Chicago was destroyed. Before the fire there was a large drought causing everything to be dry and flammable, then a fire broke out in the O’Leary’s barn and spread throughout the city. Many attempts were made to put out the fire but there were too many errors and problems in the beginning. After the fire many people were left homeless and had to help build their city again (Murphy, 39)
Before the fire broke out on Sunday night, October 8, 1871 there had been a large drought causing everything to be dry and extremely flammable. Many fires had been breaking out in Chicago. Records show that in 1870 the fire fighters went to nearly 600 fires. On Saturday night there had been a large fire that destroyed about four blocks and lasted for 16 hours. Another reason why everything in Chicago was so flammable was because almost the entire city was made out of wood. It was a lot worse in the middle class and poor sections of the town (19). Just about every house was made out of wood. Even buildings that claimed to be fire proof had wood roofs covered with tar. The richer part of town had stone and brick homes, but wooden interiors, wooden stables, and wooden storage buildings (Cromie, 81). Chicago was built on marshland and every time it rained the city flooded, so to help this problem the roads were made out of wood and elevated above the waterline. The day the fire started there were over 55 miles of pine-block street and 600 miles of wooden sidewalks. “Chicago in 1871 was a city ready to burn,” according to Jim Murphy, author of The Great Fire (Murphy, 18).
It was Sunday October 8th about 8:45pm, when Daniel “Peg Leg” Sullivan went to visit the O’Learys’ house only to find out they were asleep. So Sullivan walked across the street to Thomas White’s house and sat down to lean against the fence. The wind was very strong that night and there was a party at the McLaughlin’s to celebrate the arrival of a relative from Ireland. Sullivan decided to go home when he noticed a fire in the O’Learys’ barn. He started shouting, “FIRE!” as loud as he could and ran to the barn to save the five cows, horse, and calf inside. As he did, his peg leg got stuck in the floorboards. He hung onto the calf as they made their way out (13, 14,15).
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...ving put out the fire (33-34). At one point while fighting the fire one of the firefighters was told to spray the houses with water so they would be wet and unable to burn. While he was doing this, a steamer unplugged his hose from its water plug because the steamer worked better than the little hose cart. The steamer however, didn’t continue spraying the houses but went somewhere else. At the same time another steamer stopped working temporarily, but was soon fixed by banging it with a hammer. It was ready to go back to work, but the time that was wasted and the neglect of the two spots that were being worked on let the fire spread and burn the rest of the city (42).
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was a terrible disaster that affected many people. It destroyed the entire city of Chicago and touched people in a way that would change them and the city forever. The start of the fire is unknown, but it could have been prevented if the building structure had been better at that time. But it is known that the fire could have been stopped had their not been so many careless mistakes and errors. As a result of the fire, Chicago was rebuilt and is once again a great city.
After the initial explosion, dead and wounded remained everywhere, fires reduce buildings to ashes and persist out of control, leaving the city in utter chaos. Dr. Fujii, Father Kleinsorge, and Mr...
\On March 25, 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist factory located on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the Asch building, in New York, caught fire. The owners of the Asch building were Max Blanck and Isaac Harris. The fire started on the eighth floor and was caused by a dropped cigarette. There were little precautions taken by the owners in case of a fire. There were only about twelve red pails of water in the building in case of a fire, one exit was locked, and one of the two elevators was out of order. The owners of the factory survived by escaping on to the roof and were able to get to the building next to theirs. It took about 30 minutes for firefighters to get the fire under control. There were about 600 employees in the factory that day
The business and political atmosphere during this time was very corrupt. No one was really interested in the safety of their workers they were more focused on making more money. Precautions that would be used to prevent fires such as fire extinguishers, sprinkler systems, or even working water hoses were not available. In the case of a fire it was nothing that could really be done. Triangle Factory owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Haris, had a history with their factories catching fire. Blanck and Haris would purposely set their businesses on fire so they could collect large insurance policies, which is one of the reasons why they did not install a sprinkler system. They needed something to help them just in case they were to burn down another
Disaster! Would some up how the city looked. Fire fire fire fire it was everywhere. Blood screaming ,and very mournful people everywhere. The smell of burnt skin,and the sight of ashes hugged the city. Montag Walked carefully avoiding the surviving fireman. Montag he must find montag. Montag crouched behind a trash can the scent of burnt trash wrestled his nose. “ hush up about montag you fool”. “Do you not see what dealing with montag has caused our city”. “ I mean he has avoided us all this time; books must not be that bad”. The other fireman looked at fireman William as if he had been on trial for murder. “ that’s crazy talk William”. The smoke must be getting too you”. “Books is the reasons our city is like this”.
In the early twentieth century, San Francisco, a bustling city full of people with diverse cultures, stood in the midst of the Second Industrial Revolution. At this time, the brilliant inventions of airplanes, automobiles, and radios were changing the everyday lives of many. San Francisco had just recovered from the four-year burden of the bubonic plague (“Bubonic”). However, right when things were getting back to normal, a destructive earthquake hit the city on April 18, 1906. Although the shaking lasted for less than a minute, the devastated city had crumbled buildings and a substantial loss of lives. The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 had a lasting effect on the city and its people, and it proved to be one of the most catastrophic disasters in history.
The Great Chicago Fire occurred during October 8th and 9th of 1871. The weeks leading up to this disaster were spent with an extremely watchful eye on the city due to the lack of rain. So, one spark or one small fire could start an extremely large fire because of how much wood had been used to build the city. There were even warnings given in form of a building inspection department idea that would inform the city that the buildings were “shoddily constructed firetraps”, according to the Tribune at the time. However, the city did nothing about the proposed problem of a dangerous fire breakout and paid the price.
In Worcester, Massachusetts, between 4:30 and 5:45 PM on December 3rd, 1999, a five-alarm fire was started by two homeless people on the second floor of a presumed-to-be abandoned six-story cold-storage and warehouse facility. A total of seventy-three firefighters responded to the scene, and the fire claimed the lives of six of them. The two homeless people, unknown to the responders, left the building shortly after the fire started without reporting it. The fire burned unchecked for between half an hour and an hour and a half, until it was finally noticed that smoke was coming out of the top of the building by an off-duty police officer. The officer then called it in, and the first alarm rang at 6:15 PM. Search and rescue operations commenced once
The poem “Chicago,” by Carl Sandburg, and the story, “A City Ready to Burn,” by Jim Murphy, both descried the effects of “fire” on the city of Chicago using two distinctive methods. Sandburg presents a more positive picture of Chicago by identifying its positive attributes and feelings of hope despite its flaws. Murphy on the other hand describes the details of the layout of the city that lead up to the catastrophe demise known as the “Chicago Fire.” Both approaches are used to create a certain imagery of the city.
‘After the great Chicago fire of 1871, evangelist Dwight L. Moody went back to survey the ruins of his house. A friend came by and said to Moody, "I hear you lost everything."
The Bell family was on their way to Yellowstone National park for a camping trip. They reached the park at 7 o'clock a.m . Nixon and Zander weren't tired at all, in fact, Nixon suggested to go to the park and they did. At the park they met some new friends and they loved jumping on the bouncy castle. They came across a sign that said don’t leave the campfire unattended. This gave them the great idea of making a campfire at night! so for now they played at the park with their new friends. (At the park). Nixon was having a fun time playing tag with their friends, but Zander wasn't because he wasn’t as athletic as Nixon was. The parents on the other hand were having some difficulties mom didn’t know
Throughout recorded history, fires have been known to cause great loss of life, property, and knowledge. The Great Fire of London was easily one of the worst fires mankind has ever seen causing large scale destruction and terror. Samuel Pepys described the fire as “A most malicious bloody flame, as one entire arch of fire of above a mile long… the churches, houses and all on fire and flaming at once, and a horrid noise the flames made.” (Britain Express 1).
They had many people fighting the fire. It goes to shoes be to be careful. Anything can happen at any moment. Just be expecting
Many aspects of London’s structure led its citizens to predict that, with time, a massive fire was
America has a fire problem. The northwest United States is burning to the ground. Forest fires are running rampant all across the states of Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Colorado, and California (Service). There are currently 1,738,243 acres burning at the time of this writing (National Interagency Fire Center). These fires are doing irreversible damage to wildlife, the environment, and even humans.
Abstract- A tragedy that was a catastrophe and had no parallel in the world’s industrial history. Tons of toxic gas was leaked and spread throughout the city. An estimated 10,000 people died and 500,000 suffered injuries with disastrous effect. (Bhushan, 2014)