Disaster Citizenship

Reviewed by: Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era by Jacob A.C. Remes Jessica van Horssen Jacob A.C. Remes, Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era (Urbana: University of Illinois Press 2016) In this well-researched and well-written book, Jacob A.C. Remes explores the way that disasters offer the opportunity for communities and organizations to develop a new sense of identity and belonging. In doing so, Remes demonstrates that disasters are often more than finite events that present historians with a snapshot of a specific place and time, but they also “alter the direction of historical change” itself. (5) Through his examination of the Salem Fire of 1914 and the Halifax Explosion of 1917, Remes details this dual effect of disasters at the local level, while also connecting each to larger changes in the American and Canadian states during the Progressive Era. This results in a comprehensive look at the ways in which the state attempted to assert control over the working class during periods of disaster, and the ways in which the working class resisted this control by shaping their own processes of relief and recovery, rooted in a newfound sense of citizenship created from the ground up in the aftermath of tragedy. Remes terms this working class-led ownership of disaster relief “disaster [End Page 346] citizenship,” and expands on it throughout each chapter. By detailing attempts made by the state, churches, and unions to assist those most affected by the two disasters in the days, months, and years that followed, Remes highlights how these organizations tried to “elevate” the working class populations of Salem and Halifax according to strict Progressive Era ideas and judgements of how families should live, work, and interact. Counterbalancing the new class of disaster management “experts” fostered by the state in the wake of each disaster, Remes highlights the ways in which the working classes of Salem and Halifax chose instead to rely on their own authority as disaster survivors, which they developed through informal modes of relief and community support in the aftermath of each disaster. Remes asserts that it was this local preference for solidarity and mutual aid, rather than external formal assistance programs, which fostered a sense of disaster citizenship. Despite the strong sense of identity and belonging formed through informal means of support following the Salem Fire and the Halifax Explosion, Remes does not generalize the “working class” in either location, nor does he overlook the very real obstacles those who did not fit the dominant white, Christian, Anglophone demographic faced when seeking aid. One minor critique with the way Remes presents this issue is that he provides considerable statistical evidence about the diverse demographics of Salem at the time of the fire, but does not do the same for Halifax in 1917, instead relying on more general statements about it being largely British, English Canadian, and American, thereby erasing much of the ethnic diversity of the port city. Indeed, the context and descriptions Remes provides of Halifax often pale in comparison to the details he provides for Salem throughout the book, which occasionally makes it seem as though it was simply a passive echo of the American case study. Despite this, Remes goes to great effort to problematize disaster citizenship throughout each chapter, emphasizing complexities of belonging and exclusion in both locations. Although Remes focuses on disasters that occurred in two communities located in two different countries, Disaster Citizenship is not simply a comparative study. In fact, even though some of the same figures involved in local disaster relief programs in Salem in 1914 were also present in Halifax in 1917, Remes contends that each disaster was distinct, and the handling of reconstruction efforts occurred within specific local, regional, and national contexts. By keeping each chapter focused on either Salem or Halifax, Remes manages to keep the two locations separate, while still furthering the field of transnational studies. Detailing how these two communities and their disasters were distinct, yet connected, Disaster Citizenship shows how the transnational movement of people and ideas become incorporated into local life at times of disaster and subsequent relief efforts. Remes demonstrates the

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