Education - FDNY History

A Quick History of the FDNY - by Peter Rothenberg and Geoff Giglierano
Chapter 1: Begining With a Blaze	Chapter 8: The Process of Professionalization
Chapter 2: The First Fire Engines	Chapter 9: Faster and Better in a Changing City
Chapter 3: Competition	Chapter 10: Covering More Ground
Chapter 4: Hear the Loud Alarm Bells	Chapter 11: Firefighting Starts Becoming a Science
Chapter 5: Pumpers and Politics	Chapter 12: Larger Events Affect the Department
Chapter 6: Decline of the Volunteer System	Chapter 13: FDNY and Times of Social Upheaval
Chapter 7: Volunteer Department's Demise	Chapter 14 The Job Goes On

Chapter 12: Larger Events Affect the Department

"As you will see from a perusal of the following report for the year 1932, this Department advanced considerably during the year, and maintained its standard of efficiency, even though handicapped by a reduction in the funds already allowed in the budget but withdrawn because of the existing financial conditions."
Fire Department, City of New York, Annual Report, 1932, New York, 1933, p.5

After making numerous changes and improvements in the 1910s and 1920s, FDNY entered a period in which national and international events had a great effect on department. The Great Depression of the 1930s limited funds that the City could spend. In 1932 the department only acquired five new vehicles far less than in the 1920s, when it had often bought forty or fifty new rigs per year.

World War Two brought better economic conditions: in 1938-1939, FDNY placed an order for twenty-eight massive Ahrens-Fox 1000 GPM (gallons per minute) model HT pumpers, as well as other new rigs. But once the U.S. entered the conflict, all available materials went into the war effort, and very few new vehicles were purchased. To augment the regular fire force during the war, auxiliary firefighters were recruited and trained, and even after the war ended, these auxiliaries were retained as part of the Cold War Civil Defense program.