Reflecting reality: the history of fire fighting through toys

Magazine Antiques, Dec, 1995 by Barbara Hayward

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 (1730 and 1791); New Orleans (1788); Savannah, Georgia (1796); Detroit, Michigan (1805); New York City (1835 and 1845); and Chicago (1871).(3) Thus, necessity promoted the early establishment of organized fire protection in America. New York City formed a formal volunteer fire department in 1737.(4) Rivalry among the various volunteer companies was common, and the incentive to be the first to put out a fire provided the initiative to create better, faster, and more powerful fire-fighting apparatus.

The earliest types of fire-fighting equipment were carried and operated by hand. Made in western Europe and exported to America in the late seventh and early eighteenth centuries, these worked on the basic principle of a double-forcing pump with a central air chamber; the water was forced out when the handles, or brakes, were pushed up and down.(5) The museum's collection contains modern scale models of three such devices (Pl. XVI). The example in the center, with long brakes and a play pipe (a type of nozzle that guides the stream of water), is a model of a device that would have been operated by four or more men. The one on the left is a model of a single-pump unit, which would have been carried by four fire fighters and operated by two. Water would have been supplied by bucket lines. On the right is a model of a wood-handled pump that would have been used to put out fires at home. A leather hose would have been attached to the nozzle extending from the pump barrel.

From the middle of the eighteenth century into the early years of the nineteenth, fire equipment included hand-pulled hook and ladders, pumpers, and hose carts. The two-wheeled hose cart in Plate XIV includes two miniature axes and a brass nozzle. The handmade toy in Plate XVII, a model of a type of book and ladder first used in New York City, is equipped with a detachable hand pull and rope, three ladders, two pike poles, a sledge hammer, a hoe, and buckets. Plate VII illustrates a hand-painted model of the Friendship 1774, the hand-pulled pumper that George Washington presented to the City of Alexandria, Virginia, in 1774, to commemorate the organization that year of the Friendship Fire Company, Alexandria's first fire company.

The model of a double-decker pumper shown in Plate I is an excellent example of the beautifully crafted and decorated equipment made for volunteer fire companies in the era when the pageantry, romance, and folklore of fire fighting were at their height. A model of a type of pumper built by John Agnew of Philadelphia and first used in New York City in 1825, the double decker was operated by two rows of fire fighters on each end, one group standing on the ground and the other on the pumper itself.

American cities began to establish paid fire departments in the second half of the nineteenth century, among them Cincinnati in 1853, New York in 1865, and Philadelphia in 1871. About the same time, technological advances led to the development of heavy steam pumpers and large water towers, which had to be hauled to fires by teams of horses. In the 1870s Chicago became the first city to use horse-drawn fire equipment.(6) Miniature cast-iron versions of these new vehicles were mass-produced by companies in the iron- and steel-milling regions of Pennsylvania, the Midwest, and Buffalo, New York.(7) Popular manufacturers included the Hubley Manufacturing Company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; the Kenton Hardware Company in Kenton, Ohio; the Wilkins Toy Company in Keene, New Hampshire;(8) and Francis W. Carpenter and Company in Harrison, New York. As at an actual fire, where several different makes and types of fire-fighting vehicles were used, children would more than likely have played with toys manufactured by a variety of toy companies.

A lucky child at the turn of the century might have found a set of Hubley fire vehicles under the tree on Christmas morning. The 1906 Hubley catalogue entitled Lancaster Iron Toys includes a hook and ladder, a steam pumper, and a hose reel, examples of which are in the Fire Museum's collection (Pls. XI-XIII). The horse-drawn hose reel on the fight in Plate II, made by the Wilkins firm, would have nicely complemented the Hubley trucks. It is pictured in the Wilkins Model Iron Toys catalogue of 1895 with a two-horse team, but different teams could be hooked to its, as here. The cast-iron toy water-tower truck shown on the contents page, probably made about 1910 by the Dent Hardware Company of Fullerton, Pennsylvania, is an excellent representation of such a truck, complete with a moving tower, a working gong, and a nozzle tip, which is a later addition to the toy. Illustrated in Plate X is a charming Wilkins single-horse hose reel, which has a single axle that operates both the wheels and the hose reel.