Everything is Going Down in Flames.

Did you know that Chicago was on fire for many days? 

A Fire Narrative of Charles C. P. Holden from the Chicago History Museum , informs us that throughout the days of the Chicago fire, the mayor had to do something and extra 'forces' had come in to help the city that had been burning more every day.

SOURCE: http://www.greatchicagofire.org/
Relief and Aid coming into action during the fire

Q) What type of things did the mayor have to do when the fire started to get out of hand?

A) As soon as the mayor’s office had caught on fire, he had gone to the cities Courthouse, to try to contact other cities or towns for help or to see what they could do about it. The mayor had tried to get to his home to save some things, but the fire had chased him out of the house. He was able to save some papers from the mayors office as he left.

Q) If the Common Council had not called a group of elected officials for a meeting, what might had happened?

A) Well, as the fire had been burning, these people(council etc) had decided to come together, as the mayor had been trying to contact other cities and towns, but they felt the need to do something on their own to try to help the many people who had already lost their homes, and also to help to start rebuilding the government, seeing that the fire had made the city go to complete chaos.

Q) After a few days of the fire going strong, what had happened to the people’s attitudes? Would you act the same way and go with whatever they had been doing?

A) One day after the fire, many many of the townspeople had started going crazy. Stealing, fighting others, and there were many people who were willing to burn, pillage and even murder others because the city was so destroyed, and there was nobody stopping them. What I would have done, was join the Relief and Aid society. They had put together some sort of police system, which reduced crime throughout the city.

Q)As the city had been in the process of being rebuilt, what did the government do to help those who had lost their homes?

A) The government, that had been starting back up again, had focused more on some than others. People who had been higher society than others, had gotten shelter and other essentials faster than those who had not been in the same ‘class’ as them.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What would you have done when the greatest city in your state, Chicago, had been on fire for multiple days?

FUTURE RESEARCH: After the fire had been extinguished, what did Chicago do to rebuild?