Contested Ground: Space, Power, and Ethnicity in the Aftermath of the Salem Fire of 1914

In June 1914, one of the last large-scale industrial conflagrations tore through Salem, Massachusetts, destroying the homes or livelihoods of more than 18,000 families.  Notably, it burned down the city’s largest employer, a textile mill, and the neighborhood where many of its workers lived.  This paper examines the experiences of French Canadians (43% of the total affected population), Italians (5%), and Jews (4%), and in particular reads closely the camp in which many refugees lived after the fire.  It describes the way the camp became, literally, contested ground, as militiamen and immigrant families struggled over the latter’s formal and domestic labor, personal autonomy, and the former’s authority and power.  Relief authorities sought to control the intimate decisions of ethnic refugees, oblivious or hostile to their specific cultural and religious needs.  In contrast, the refugees sought to maintain authority over their own lives and struggled to reshape the militarized camp in a way that respected their communal needs and cultures.  Like other Progressive-Era programs, authorities sought to make relief contingent on recipients giving up power and autonomy; in contrast, workers and their families sought simultaneously to demand access to the resources the state controlled and retain their independence and autonomy.