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Historian Jacob A. C. Remes book Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era examines how citizens and government responded to city disasters in Halifax, Nova Scotia and Salem, Massachusetts. The Halifax fire occurred in 1914 and the Salem fire in 1917. The book focuses on the relationships between victims, first responders, formal organizations, and the state. Remes analyzes each groups perspective on how they responded to the disasters. For example, during the Halifax fire, Remes breaks up the responders in three different groups: the relief workers, relief managers, and survivors. Many of the relief workers left their workplace to volunteer in hospitals due to the overwhelming amount of victims. Relief workers with no formal hospital training were able to organize themselves and adapt quickly to the needs of the hospital. Remes states, “The created order and efficiency without direction…middle-class volunteers who appear to have had little or no connection with those they were helping were not being randomly altruistic. Rather, they were reenacting their own everyday solidarity in extraordinary times.” (p. 29) During the disaster the group that appeared to be disorderly were the relief managers. Relief managers consisted of leaders from businesses, formal organizations, and politicians. The relief managers, due to their lack of knowledge, were not able to responds to the magnitude of the disaster. Due to communication lines being down throughout the city they were unaware of the impact in the city’s North End. In addition, the relief managers did not immediately go to city hall as they tended to their own needs first, securing their homes from the disaster. This was in contrast to the relief workers who also had a lack of knowledge of how to assist in the hospital, but still in their preexisting social order were able to adapt. The lack of knowledge for relief managers prohibited them from adapting quickly. In addition, because of the lack of knowledge they were not able to supply adequate solutions just as yaremenko stated in her post. The survivors were able to create their own order. Remes writes, “Like relief workers, the built this order on the basis of their preexisting communities, relationships, and networks.” (p. 23) The survivors used the order they built to assist family and close friends.
In Disaster Citizenship, all the actors during and after the disaster had to renegotiate the relationship between each other. After the disasters the state took a more active role to better protect their citizens and improve interaction and formal organization in response to future crisis’s. Remes extensive use of primary sources included the Red Cross, city, military, diaries, personal narratives, church records and newspapers. Remes also provides a well written introduction providing a clear argument and a theme for the book.