Download or read book My Memories of the St Louis Board of Fire Underwriters written by James A. Waterworth and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Eating Smoke written by Mark Tebeau and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the period of America's swiftest industrialization and urban growth, fire struck fear in the hearts of city dwellers as did no other calamity. Before the Civil War, sweeping blazes destroyed more than $200 million in property in the nation's largest cities. Between 1871 and 1906, conflagrations left Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, and San Francisco in ruins. Into the twentieth century, this dynamic hazard intensified as cities grew taller and more populous, confounding those who battled it. Firefighters' death-defying feats captured the popular imagination but too often failed to provide more than symbolic protection. Hundreds of fire insurance companies went bankrupt because they could not adequately deal with the effects of even smaller blazes. Firefighters and fire insurers created a physical and cultural infrastructure whose legacy—in the form of heroic firefighters, insurance policies, building standards, and fire hydrants—lives on in the urban built environment. In Eating Smoke, Mark Tebeau shows how the changing practices of firefighters and fire insurers shaped the built landscape of American cities, the growth of municipal institutions, and the experience of urban life. Drawing on a wealth of fire department and insurance company archives, he contrasts the invention of a heroic culture of firefighters with the rational organizational strategies by fire underwriters. Recognizing the complexity of shifting urban environments and constantly experimenting with tools and tactics, firefighters fought fire ever more aggressively—"eating smoke" when they ventured deep into burning buildings or when they scaled ladders to perform harrowing rescues. In sharp contrast to the manly valor of firefighters, insurers argued that the risk was quantifiable, measurable, and predictable. Underwriters managed hazard with statistics, maps, and trade associations, and they eventually agitated for building codes and other reforms, which cities throughout the nation implemented in the twentieth century. Although they remained icons of heroism, firefighters' cultural and institutional authority slowly diminished. Americans had begun to imagine fire risk as an economic abstraction. By comparing the simple skills employed by firefighters—climbing ladders and manipulating hoses—with the mundane technologies—maps and accounting charts—of insurers, the author demonstrates that the daily routines of both groups were instrumental in making intense urban and industrial expansion a less precarious endeavor.

Download or read book The Unheralded Triumph written by Jon C. Teaford and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2019-12-01 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1984. In 1888 the British observer James Bryce declared "the government of cities" to be "the one conspicuous failure of the United States." During the following two decades, urban reformers would repeat Bryce's words with ritualistic regularity; nearly a century later, his comment continues to set the tone for most assessments of nineteenth-century city government. Yet by the end of the century, as Jon Teaford argues in this important reappraisal, American cities boasted the most abundant water supplies, brightest street lights, grandest parks, largest public libraries, and most efficient systems of transportation in the world. Far from being a "conspicuous failure," municipal governments of the late nineteenth century had successfully met challenges of an unprecedented magnitude and complexity. The Unheralded Triumph draws together the histories of the most important cities of the Gilded Age—especially New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Baltimore—to chart the expansion of services and the improvement of urban environments between 1870 and 1900. It examines the ways in which cities were transformed, in a period of rapid population growth and increased social unrest, into places suitable for living. Teaford demonstrates how, during the last decades of the nineteenth century, municipal governments adapted to societal change with the aid of generally compliant state legislatures. These were the years that saw the professionalization of city government and the political accommodation of the diverse ethnic, economic, and social elements that compose America's heterogeneous urban society. Teaford acknowledges that the expansion of urban services dangerously strained city budgets and that graft, embezzlement, overcharging, and payroll-padding presented serious problems throughout the period. The dissatisfaction with city governments arose, however, not so much from any failure to achieve concrete results as from the conflicts between those hostile groups accommodated within the newly created system: "For persons of principle and gentlemen who prized honor, it seemed a failure yet American municipal government left as a legacy such achievements as Central Park, the new Croton Aqueduct, and the Brooklyn Bridge, monuments of public enterprise that offered new pleasures and conveniences for millions of urban citizens."

Download or read book The Insurance Field written by and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 758 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vols. for 1910-56 include convention proceedings of various insurance organizations.

Download or read book The Weekly Underwriter written by Alasco Delancey Brigham and published by . This book was released on 1904 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book News Letter written by Insurance Society of New York and published by . This book was released on 1924 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some issues include the annual reports of the society and its officers.

Download or read book National Underwriter written by and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 1114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Banquet of St Louis Board of Fire Underwriters 21st Anniversary written by St. Louis Board of Fire Underwriters and published by . This book was released on 1893 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Report on the city of St Louis Mo written by National Board of Fire Underwriters. Committee on Fire Prevention and Engineering Standards and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Control of Competition in Fire Insurance written by William H. Wandel and published by . This book was released on 1935 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Eastern Underwriter written by and published by . This book was released on 1912 with total page 812 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Unheralded Triumph City Government in America 1870 1900 written by Jon C. Teaford and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Insurance Reform written by H. Roger Grant and published by Iowa State Press. This book was released on 1979 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Control of Competition in Fire Insurance written by William Hamlin Wandel and published by . This book was released on 1935 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Standard written by and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 668 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Missouri Historical Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Chronicle written by and published by . This book was released on 1873 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: