The recent Tennessee fire tragedy brings to mind the oft-told story about how fire protection allegedly used to work. Back in the olden days, when men were men and the nanny state allegedly didn't exist, fire protection was provided by private fire brigades, associated with fire insurance companies. If you wanted fire protection, you had to buy insurance. The insurance company would put its "fire mark" on your property, and only then would they have your fires put out. Otherwise, water would be sprayed on your neighbors' homes, not yours.
Fire marks are not common in the USA any more, but the custom may have originated in England; many old London houses still sport them. And the same story is told there. But a recent NPR report tells a different tale. Mark Tebeau is the author of Eating Smoke: Fire in Urban America; he was interviewed this past Friday on All Things Considered.
Here's the key take-away, from the NPR transcript:
Professor MARK TEBEAU (Department of History, Cleveland State University): Sadly, Robert, I am. Thats largely a myth. In the 19th century in the United States, fire insurance companies did, indeed, when they sold fire insurance policies, put signs, fire marks, on the houses. Those would indicate to a fire company that the home was insured, so they may receive some reward for it. Fire companies were largely funded by their communities and also the fire insurance companies. However, the real function of the sign was more likely as advertising or to deter arson.
SIEGEL: It was like the sign that we'd see for a home security alarm system that people put up in front of their homes today.
Prof. TEBEAU: I think thats largely the case. And fire companies would have responded in the 19th century to any fire by putting it out, because fire was an exceptional danger in wood cities of that era.
It seems that in early America, there was more of a sense of community. Firemen wanted to show how brave and (yes) manly they were, and to show their pride in their still-young country. They developed their own new technology for fire fighting (this was when steam-pumped horse-drawn fire engines were being developed). They also did make some money at it: Fire insurance companies paid fire brigades, and the one who got there first and actually put out the fire would get a reward from the company who insured the property. But even if there was no insurance, there was no idea of leaving a property to burn to the ground. How unpatriotic that would have been!
Prof. TEBEAU: Well, fire brigades in the United States, early in the 19th and the late 18th century, really emerged using the iconography of the early republic - all the political symbols of the day. Those symbols indicated their commitment to public service, their vision of a community of Americans.
And what surprised me in the Tennessee case is that that whole iconography from the early republic seems to have been lost in this sense of quid quo pro - if you give me money, I will protect you.
So the Tennessee local government officials who let fires burn if not paid in advance are living in a mythical world when they think that they are merely returning to an earlier era. It's the same kind of lie that the teabaggers like to tell about how Christian the founding fathers were, or how the country was founded on the principles of laissez-faire capitalism. They either make up history or confuse myth with reality. But then a majority probably believe that the world is only 6000 years old too. Remember that in the Bush White House, a big insult was "RBCer", for a member of the "reality based community". I guess some insults don't hurt their targets too much.
Here's the transcript of Robert Siegel's interview with Tebeau:
http://www.npr.org/...