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Aqueduct and Iron Curtain at the Federal Street Theatre, Boston
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2010
Extract
The equipping of theaters with fire-prevention devices is generally considered to be a relatively recent concern. For example, Barnard Hewitt writes of the American theater: “No one concerned himself with prevention until Steele MacKaye made a nuisance of himself with buckets, hoses, and fireproofing of scenery.” It is true that the prevention of fires in theaters did not become a significant public issue until the latter half of the nineteenth century. MacKaye was responding to increased public concern for the safety of theatergoers. Fires in theaters were indeed tragically common during that century. Gas lighting created a considerable fire hazard, and after its introduction in the first quarter of the century the incidence of fires in theaters increased alarmingly.
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1967
References
NOTES
1 Theatre U. S. A., 1668 to 1957 (New York, 1959), p. 288.
2 See Sachs, Edwin O., Fires and Public Entertainments (London, 1897)Google Scholar, in which the author, an architect, lists more than 1100 theaters and other places of public entertainment destroyed or materially damaged by fire from 1797 to 1897. Of them, 462 are American.
3 Dibdin, Charles, Jun., History and Illustrations of the London Theatres (London, 1826), p. 51.Google Scholar
4 Faxon's daughter Mary claimed that he coppered the Constitution (see George Faxon, L., The History of the Faxon Family [Springfield, Mass., 1880], pp. 120–121Google Scholar). Paul Revere supplied the copper for the Constitution, and it is possible that Faxon did the work, but I have been able to find no evidence to support this claim.
5 All the Federal Street Theatre manuscripts in the Boston Public Library have the BPL call-number prefix Ms.Th.I, and the Faxon bill has the further number T 16 (190). The bills for materials are scattered among the manuscripts Ms.Th.l.T 13-T 17. The prefix will be omitted from later citations to the BPL manuscripts.
6 BPL Mss. T.71.6 Vol. 2 (entry for Feb. 2, 1799); M 19; T.71.6, Vol. 2 (entrv for Feb. 23, 1799).
7 BPL Mss. C 14, T 18(263).
8 BPL Mss. T17 (249), T 20 (21), T 20 (27). For a discussion of the incorporation and early history of the Aqueduct Corporation, see Blake, Nelson Manfred, Water for the Cities (Syracuse, N. Y., 1956), pp. 64–66.Google Scholar To evaluate the fire-hose, it is interesting to compare the opinion of an expert writing much later. Gerhard, William Paul, in Theatre Fires and Panics: Their Causes and Prevention (New York, 1896), p. 134Google Scholar, states: “At each fire valve there should be provided at least fifty feet of fire hose…. It is important that every corner may be reached by a line of fire hose….” Gerhard, incidentally, also discusses metal fire-curtains (pp. 75–77), and he appends an extensive bibliography of books and articles in English, French, and German. He does not mention the Federal Street Theatre.
8 The inventories have the call-numbers Inv. 4, Inv. 5, and M 12. The trucking bill is E 193. The Cabots' report is numbered Ms. Th.2.B 5 (see p. 23). Aside from Russell's Gazette and a collection of the works of Robert Treat Paine, Jr., I have been able to find no published references to the iron curtain or to the other fire-prevention devices at the Federal Street Theatre. Ruth Michael, in an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, “A History of the Professional Theatre in Boston from the Beginning to 1816” (2 Vols, Radcliffe, 1941), Vol. I, Part I, 259, quotes one of the manuscript references to the curtain that I have cited (the Proprietors' refusal of Whitlock's application). She chose neither to draw attention to it nor to pursue it.