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David Cowan

Great Chicago Fires: Historic Blazes That Shaped a City (Illinois) Paperback – July 26, 2001

by David Cowan (Author)

7 ratings

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Chronicles notable Chicago fires and their causes, consequences, and historical contexts, and follows the development of the city's firefighters from nineteenth-century citizen bucket brigades to the modern day, high-tech fire department.

Print length

169 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Lake Claremont Pr
Publication date

July 26, 2001
Dimensions

8 x 0.5 x 9.75 inches
ISBN-10

1893121070
ISBN-13

978-1893121072
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Cowan was born in Chicago in 1963. He co-authored (with John Kuenster) the critically acclaimed book about the Our Lady of the Angels school fire, To Sleep With the Angels: The Story of a Fire (Ivan R. Dee, Inc.). A U.S. Air Force veteran and former award-winning newspaper reporter, he holds degrees in journalism and political science from Southern Illinois University. Now a firefighter and independent journalist, Mr. Cowan has written for major newspapers and magazines and appeared in numerous television documentaries about historic fires. He lives in Chicago with his wife, writer and historian Ursula Bielski, and their daughter, Eva.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lake Claremont Pr; 1st edition (July 26, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 169 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1893121070
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1893121072
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8 x 0.5 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,729,203 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,760 in Midwest U.S. Biographies
- #2,014 in Natural Disasters (Books)
- #41,130 in United States Biographies

Customer Reviews:
7 ratings

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5 star		47%
4 star		32%
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Kim

I was not disappointed in this book

Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2015

Verified Purchase

I was not disappointed in this book. He told short but to the point stories about all the fires that happened in the great city of Chicago.

Helpful

S M Senden

fires

Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2010

Verified Purchase

A good overview of many fires in Chicago history that will prompt you to do more reading on the subjests.

Helpful

Severin Olson

TWO CENTURIES OF FIRE

Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2009

As one of the nation's largest cities, one would expect many fires, but Chicago has suffered more than it's share. Just about every type of building in the windy city has burned at one time or other. These include theaters, hotels, schools and warehouses, not to mention the city itself, which lost some 18000 buildings in the well known 1871 conflagration. All of these and more are included here. And the book is relatively short, so it can be read at a single reading, or one can select chapters of interest.

I was also pleased to discover so much new detail here. I had thought it likely that much here would be no more than a retelling of familiar fire stories, but that was not so. I have studied these fires, and still learned a lot. For instance; Lloyds of London cancelled all policies in Chicago one year before the great fire because of its condition. The Iriquois Theater was built with historic building fires in mind, but the owners cut corners to open early. The mayor of an Illinois town who died in the La Salle hotel blaze of 1946 was going to stay elsewhere, but was sent to the La Salle by mistake. These are but three fascinating facts from this work on 'Great Chicago Fires'.

One person found this helpful

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Librarian Janet

Amazing Men...No Women?

Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2013

This is an amazing book that does a wonderful job of chronicling Chicago's fiery past. I read story after story of brave, valiant firemen who risked their lives and (some) paid the ultimate price. And that's when I realized something. I am not a woman who shrieks about feminism on a daily basis, but I didn't see a single female firefighter mentioned in this entire book. Maybe I missed her. Or this could be in part because women, I'm assuming, simply weren't firefighters in the early days. I'm not sure when that changed, but this book covers fires well into the 20th century. Perhaps the sources Cowan used didn't include any such notes, but one would think that somewhere in there a woman would have done something worthy of notice.

Helpful

Ironic and excellent book

Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2007

David Cowan's book on Chicago fires now has an infamous side that makes the book all-the-more of an sad and interesting read. There are a few generations of Chicagoans who remember these events: terrible events that wail through the years.

The history of Chicago blazes is very well done; dig into it.

2 people found this helpful

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Great Chicago Fires: Historic Blazes That Shaped a City (Illinois) Paperback – July 26, 2001

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