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I found Smith’s account of how the Chicago fire affected the city and surronding enviorment particularly intresting because he covered some, if not most, of the viewpoints people had in response to the fire. On the first page of The Imaginitive Dimensions of the Great Chicago Fire Smith says that many people belived the fire “reconfirmed Chicago’s transcedent purpose and special relationship with God and history (Biel.129)” given the fact that most of the Chicagoans were Christan and were ambitious about the cities future due to boostersim I can see why many people saw the fire as the work of God. The fire was seen as a thing that cleansed the city of impurities and gave them second chance to make the city better, it was also a warning for other cities to improve their cities (Biel 135). Smith makes his other point of how although Chicago had a promising future a lot of work had to be done until it could be the promising city people claimed it was destined to be. Most of the exapmles he used showed class tensions and how the fire may have even exacerbated the situation. I was suprised at the bias that arose through many of the different publications that came out after the fire occured and how even in times like these people could still be cold hearted. One example given by Smith recounts how people were more sympathetic towards the wealthy beacuse they suffered heavier losses; it goes even further when people claim that the fire wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because it vanquished some of the poorer neighborhoods (Biel 150). This piece reminded me of @daisysolorio’s post in which she mentioned when Pokin described how Thucydides and Herodotus gave accounts of the same Greek history but portrayed it in different ways. Simarlily, Smith complied different viewpoints from articles, books, and poems to show how people reacted to the fire. Both the works by Popkin and Smith show how bias and perception clearly have a way of shaping how an event is remebered.