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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一切坚固的东西都燃烧殆尽：十九世纪美国的资本主义与火焰

工业资本主义抵达欧洲时，城市大火已经消退。然而，美国的木材资源丰富，而且更加依赖木结构建筑。结果，其地狱般的景象一直持续到资本时代，甚至愈演愈烈。他们尤其袭击了商品化严重的地方：匆忙建造的定居者城镇、奴隶城市、金融中心和矿产开采地。注意到火灾与资本主义之间的联系，一群向上流动的奋斗者开始欣赏火灾，因为它们具有破坏社会等级制度、重置财产关系和培育经济活力的能力。奇怪的是，许多遭受火灾的人甚至将其解读为“因祸得福”。然而，这种嗜火现象并不普遍，镀金时代最富有的人极力反对，转而寻求保护环境。恐火者和嗜火者之间的冲突是经济统治者和经济叛乱者之间的冲突，它涉及十九世纪末文化的许多领域。熟悉的镀金时代文物，如芝加哥的《白城》和弗兰克·鲍姆的《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中得到有效的理解。