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Eli doesn’t think the cow did it, Garrett thinks it was ‘Peg-Leg’ Sullivan, and Richard Bales seems to agree with both of them. After reading through Bales’ website (which I agree with Eli doesn’t seem to work as an extremely effective historiography, but proves interesting nonetheless), I came to the conclusion that whoever/whatever caused the initial spark of the Great Chicago fire can’t be held accountable for the whole disaster. On whomever one would like to ascribe the blame–Mrs. O’Leary, the cow, ‘Peg-Leg’, Regan–the disastrous outcome on the fire was ultimately a result of a combination of events on the night of October 8th.
Bales explains that Mrs. O’Leary was exonerated for 7 reasons, most of which were failures on the part of the Fire Department to accurately locate the fire quickly, as well as equipment malfunctions. Had such mistakes not occurred, Bales suggests that it is likely that the fire would not have caused such widespread damage.
I think that there is a tendency in history (and in society in general) to want to ascribe blame to one person or one group of people. For example, was the reason the Titanic disastrous because there weren’t enough lifeboats? There was complacency on the part of the crew? Not solid enough engineering efforts? Surely it was a combination of all of the aforementioned reasons. If we take a look at more recent disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the BP Oil Spill, there was an intense effort following each event to place blame. Perhaps it is a coping mechanism or a way to better comprehend the effects of a disaster, however, as students looking at history, instead of trying to find out the exact cause of disasters like the Chicago Fire, we should aim to gather a more comprehensive list of all the reasons the event turned into a disaster.
To quickly comment on Pernin’s account of the Peshtigo Fire, I agree with Catherine and Nate about the value of this particular primary source in better understanding historical events. I just wanted to pose a question about aside from Chicago being a more prominent locale, why does the Peshtigo Fire seem to be lost in memory?