Battling the Blaze: Artifacts from the history of firefighting

Welcome to Looking Through the Past! At its heart, this is a project in which I find a bunch of cool stuff every week and share it with you. It takes hours of research and writing to produce. If you’re new here, click the button below to subscribe. If you’re already a free subscriber who appreciates getting a bunch of cool stuff in your inbox every week, please consider a paid subscription, for less than $1 a week. I thought I knew how I was going to introduce this week’s topic — some fascinating artifacts from the history of firefighting — but it seems that I’ve hit a snag. Let me explain. In our wealth-obsessed society, there’s one thing that reliably attracts attention: the Rich Guy. People pay an immense amount of attention to what we used to call the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. If you’re like most Americans, your brain is cluttered with facts or suppositions about Elon’s kids, Bezos’ divorce, Warren Buffett’s car, and all sorts of other stuff about Rich Guys that is much ... Read full article.