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Carl Smith’s “Faith and Doubt: The Imaginative Dimensions of the Chicago Fire” provides two commonly accepted, but opposing, depictions of the Great Chicago Fire in the late 1800s. The first argued that the Fire was an act of deus ex machine, with God reaching his hand down to Earth and tearing down institutions of malice. The second, and more foreboding, depiction instead viewed the Fire as a great revelation of the sins and evils within the city that humanity must work to ameliorate. Both views can be boiled down to one question: was the fire a reformation in itself, or a call to action for reform? For many observers, the fire was itself a positive, unifying force that tore down social barriers and created a singular community and a “common brotherhood” of Chicagoans. (141) However, the landed classes in Chicago viewed the newly level playing field with hysteria and paranoia, calling it an indistinguishable blend of “human creatures and maddened animals.” (158) Smith writes this piece to remind us that the “moral value” of disaster is entirely based on perspective.
As Casey noted earlier today, Smith does an excellent job juxtaposing the “recovery and hospitality” after the fire with the “violence and corruption” that occurred during it. The first half of Smith’s article focuses entirely on positive memorializations of the fire. His sources range from pastors who praise the fire as a destruction of Chicago’s “gambling-hell” and “primal sin of selfishness” to journalists who celebrate the response as “kindling the fire of sympathy” within the nation (133/141/142). These positive interpretations of the blaze highlight how the incident served as a “trial of the city’s character,” with the city emerging as unified and determined to rebuild (136). The second half of his article is less cheery, stressing the chaotic reports of people who experienced the fire firsthand. Law, order, and the established social structure break down in favor of looting, lynching, and vigilante justice. The class divides that existed before the fire “were leveled off as smooth as the beach itself,” as fire proved to be a thoroughly class-blind destroyer of property (157). The “swift justice” (A&E reality show potential there) that met thieves in the form of lynching and hanging proved to be a barbaric foil to the great sympathy and care shown to survivors after the fire (153).
“Faith and Doubt,” while not making any bold argument on the moral value of the Great Chicago Fire, serves as a fitting reminder that no disaster can ever be interpreted as purely “good.” While the relief efforts and tales of rebuilding are inspiring, the memoirs of the survivors document a darker story. In the Lord of the Flies-type environment created by the fire, it was every man for himself, with justice nowhere to be found. Smith gives us a solemn example of how “leveling the playing field” may not be quite as idyllic as we hoped it to be.