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Article: Reflecting reality: the history of fire fighting through toys.
- Article from:
- The Magazine Antiques
- Article date:
- December 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Brant Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Fire-fighting toys can, of course, never capture the harsh realities of actual fires, but as models of real objects they do possess a certain connection to those realities. The comprehensive collection of fire-fighting toys and working models in the New York City Fire Museum traces the development of fire-fighting apparatus, and thus, the history of fire fighting in this country.(1)
Between the late seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, frequent fires leveled entire cities.(2) Boston, for example, burned to the ground several times (in 1653, 1676, 1679, 1711, 1760, 1787, 1852, and 1872), and fires destroyed other cities at various times, including Philadelphia ...