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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
During the last quarter of the nineteenth century the average life of a theatre in Europe was about twenty years; the life expectancy of a theatre in the United States was much less. Chances were that the theatre would burn. Nothing seemed sufficient to prevent accidental fires from getting started, and, once the fires had begun, they could rarely be brought under control. In practically every case, however, the general public remained indifferent to its safety. Theatres destroyed by fire were rebuilt, reopened, and refilled almost immediately. Three major theatre catastrophes spanned the nineteenth century in America: the burning of the Theatre in Richmond in 1811, where seventy died; the fire at Mrs. Conway's Theatre in Brooklyn in 1876, which killed two hundred and eighty-five; and the worst of the theatre disasters, the Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago in 1903, where six hundred and two perished. These were the most devastating fires in a century during which hundreds of theatres burned, many thousands of dollars worth of property was destroyed, and well over a thousand spectators lost their lives. Such tragedies were in the general pattern of conflagrations in America throughout the nineteenth century. Imagine a closely built-up street running from New York to Chicago. If all the buildings on both sides of that street were burned, the loss would equal the estimated costs from fires in this country in 1907.
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