The Fireproof Building
Subtitle: Technology and Public Safety in the Nineteenth-Century American City (Studies in Industry and Society)
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: April 21, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 312
ISBN-13: 9780801863110
Subjects: Fire protection & safety; History of science; Impact of science & technology on society; Technology; Fire Science And Technology; Building Construction; United States; Technology & Industrial Arts; Science/Mathematics; USA; Fires; Fire Science; History - General; United States - 19th Century; Science / History; Building, Fireproof; Construction - General; 19th century; Cities and towns; History
First sentence: In 1631, the year after the arrival of the first settlers from the Massachusetts Bay Company, colonial authorities passed a law prohibiting wooden chimneys and thatch roofs in Boston.
Description: "The Fireproof Building traces the development of structural fire protection in America and its important consequences for building construction as well as for the safety of cities. Urban conflagrations destroyed many downtowns in the nineteenth century. To protect their property, some owners made their buildings fire-resistive - or as they were called in the past, fireproof - by using new kinds of noncombustible materials and arranging the space inside to check the spread of fire.

As these methods improved and owners replaced combustible buildings with fireproof ones, urban firestorms became a thing of the past."--BOOK JACKET.