Education - FDNY History

A Quick History of the FDNY - by Peter Rothenberg and Geoff Giglierano
Chapter 1: Beginning 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 6: Decline of the Volunteer System

"Beginning, say, at 1846, the class of men began to deteriorate. The proposition to introduce steam engines was perhaps a chief cause, as those who were opposed to the steamers, and there were many, regarded their introduction as the beginning of the end of the Volunteer Fire Department. This tended to bring on demoralization, and a good many of the best men retired."
Vol FF John A. Creiger, c. 1880

In 1854 the insurance industry, one of the loudest critics of the volunteer department, established the Fire Patrol; a paid salvage company. The insurance industry also backed the use of steam powered fire engines, and around 1859 the first ones were put into service. Like the double-decker engine before it the steam engine was initially seen by many as too powerful and cumbersome, but what many firefighters disliked most about them was that they required far fewer men to operate.