newspaper articles as artifacts of progressivism

welcome back history fans!! it's been a while since i have written a blog post lol! today we got to research this awesome newspaper archive to find different terms used during the Progressive Era. the term that i decided to research about was "factory fire", it brought up almost 4 million results!! once i narrowed it down into a more specific time era (1916-1917) the number was still pretty large, 235,965! what this number means is that the phrase "factory fire" appeared in newspapers 235,965 times!

here are my notes from source #1:

• talked a lot about how much the city lost from all the damages caused by the fires
• talked about one massive chemical plant that exploded in London
• 217 fires occurred just in the city of Topeka, Kansas and only during July
• most causes for the fires
• 2 fires caused by hot or malten metal (resulted in the greatest losses)
• 53 fires that the cause was unknown
• 9 fires caused by fireworks/firecrackers
• lightning caused 28 fires
• matches were the cause of 20 fires
• total damages cost $224,272

seeing how many fires happened in just one month of a very small town in kansas i was shocked, and i was like, hmmm if that small city had 217 fires in july I wonder how many fires happened in the bigger cities like pennsylvania or new york. i decided to research on the web and find one of the worst fires in US history and i found one.

source #2

• the great chicago fire 1871
• entire newspaper is all about the damages of chicago fire
• "the business portion of the city in ashes. 50,000 people left house-less. no hope for the city. the fire covers thirty-three squares in length and thirteen in breadth."
• the wind was the biggest culprit of the fire spreading
• "the flames swept through the city with the rapidity of a prairie fire, and many must have perished."
• the water works are entirely destroyed
• "they are now blowing up buildings on the line of the fire to attempt to arrest the progress of the flames."
• they were literally blowing up buildings to get the fire to stop moving
• i mean they were desperate
• most of the buildings claimed to be fire proof
• cost 150 million to repair
• bakeries and penitentiaries were busy working every night cooking bread and meats to send to chicago
• had reports on all the different cities in indiana and ohio talking about the fire and all the excitement and preparation the this fire caused
• it made cities more aware that this could happen to them and the started to make preparations for this

in the end, i was astonished at not only the quantity of the fires in the US but also the affect of the chicago fire on all these different states. even though the fire never even reached those states, it kinda did. what i mean is that all the cities started preparing for the worst (like doomsday lol) and started saving their money just in case something like this happened. it was nice to see all the collaboration and support that the surrounding states gave to the citizens of chicago. 

thanks for reading!!

xoxo ellie