| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Sara E. Wermeil. The Fireproof Building: Technology and Public Safety in the Nineteenth-Century American City. (Studies in Industry and Society.) Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, in association with the Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Del. 2000. Pp. viii, 301. $45.00.

The terrifying image of the World Trade Center aflame is one not easily forgotten, and the events of September 11 have proven the importance of fireproofing to all Americans. This is the first academic book charting the development and acceptance of fire-resistant and fireproof construction in America's cities. Prior to the growth of science and technology studies in recent decades, the history of fireproofing seemed not to be of great interest to historians. With the important exception of Carl Condit and Sarah Landau's The Rise of the New York Skyscraper 1865–1913 (1996), virtually all work on the topic was limited to the accounts of the men involved in the process. Sara E. Wermiel, a city planner and historian of technology, deserves praise for recognizing the significance of the topic and for salvaging it from the dustbin of turn-of-the-century engineering studies. At the start of the nineteenth century, conflagrations involving large numbers of structures were common in urban America; by the 1920s, they were almost unheard of. While fireproofing was not solely responsible for this shift (certainly firefighters and wise zoning board members share the credit), fireproof buildings both withstood fire themselves and played crucial roles in limiting the spread of fire to other buildings. . . .

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