Factory Fires in the Progressive Era

I researched factory fires in Alabama between 1880 and 1925.  This search had 19645 matches and peaked in the 1890s. I found in the Coosa River News from July 31, 1896 an article titled "Wonderful things are near".  The article focused on advancements in electricity during this time period.  It talked about horseless carriages, electricity and light in every home, electricity becoming as cheap as water, and factories using electricity to power machines making the air much cleaner and get rid of factory fires  The article predicted that all of this could happen by the 1920s.  I also found that this prediction was not very accurate because on July 23, 1919 the Decatur Daily published an article about a recent factory fire caused by a lit cigarette that killed 50 people and injured more.  The amount of matches for the search did decline as the timeline got closer to the 1920s so improvements must have been made but factory fires had not completely gone away.

Coosa River News

The Decaturs Daily