Episode 41: Dangers and Dilemmas: Firemen and Policemen in the 1920s and 1930s

Everyday run-ins with danger could pull policemen and firemen into newspaper stories and headlines. But famous cases and fires tended to be featured when careers were being summed up. Many firemen who were active in the 1920s and 1930s worked on the 1914 lumberyard fire in the flats that nearly destroyed the Central Viaduct, or the 1929 Cleveland Clinic Fire that killed 123 people and injured 92. Policemen were more likely than firemen to face moral quandaries. The 1930s were rife with such quandaries. Between the desperation of the Great Depression, the rise of gangsters, and labor unrest, policemen often found themselves in situations that pitted them against neighbors and friends or involved temptations and conflicted loyalties.