Industrial capitalism arrived in Europe as great urban fires were already retreating. The United States, however, was generously timbered and far more reliant on wooden construction. As a result, its infernos continued, and even increased, well into its age of capital. They especially struck places of intense commodification: hastily built settler towns, slave cities, financial centres and sites of mineral extraction. Noting the connection between fire and capitalism, a class of upwardly mobile strivers came to appreciate fires for their ability to disrupt social hierarchies, reset property relations and nurture economic dynamism. Oddly, many who had suffered fires even interpreted them as ‘blessings in disguise’. This pyrophilia was not universal, however, and the richest men of the Gilded Age strenuously opposed it, seeking instead to fireproof the environment. The clash between pyrophobes and pyrophiles was between economic incumbents and economic insurgents, and it touched on many areas of late nineteenth-century culture. Familiar Gilded Age artefacts such as Chicago’s White City and L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz can be productively understood in terms of this widespread fight over the value of fire, and thus the shape of capitalism.

中文翻译：

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所有固体都燃起火焰：19 世纪美国的资本主义与火焰


工业资本主义来到欧洲时，城市大火已经消退。然而，美国的木材资源丰富，更依赖木结构。结果，它的地狱继续，甚至增加，一直持续到它的资本时代。他们尤其打击了高度商品化的地方：匆忙建造的定居城镇、奴隶城市、金融中心和矿产开采地。注意到火与资本主义之间的联系，一类向上流动的奋斗者开始欣赏火，因为它们能够破坏社会等级制度、重置财产关系和培养经济活力。奇怪的是，许多遭受火灾的人甚至将其解释为“因祸得福”。然而，这种嗜火并不是普遍的，镀金时代最富有的人极力反对它，而是寻求对环境进行防火。仇火者和嗜火者之间的冲突是经济上位者和经济叛乱者之间的冲突，它触及了 19 世纪后期文化的许多领域。熟悉的镀金时代文物，如芝加哥的白城和 L. Frank Baum 的《绿野仙踪》，可以从这场关于火的价值以及资本主义形态的广泛斗争的角度来有效地理解。