The smokeaters of suburbia: Considerations of social class, race, gender and community in suburban volunteer fire departments

Amidst all of the recent political and academic emphasis on the importance of community service and the decline in voluntarism, volunteer fire departments remain one of the most enduring voluntary associations in the nation yet one of the least studied of all third sector groups. A major focus of this project is to identify the ways in which social class, race and gender intersect and influence suburban volunteer fire departments, the experiences of volunteer firefighters and feelings of community during a time when America is experiencing an overall downturn in civic participation.; A multiple-methods approach was used to collect data for the dissertation. Demographic data were initially gathered from archives and records and quantitative data were collected from firefighters using a survey (N = 397). Qualitative data were collected through thirty-six semi-structured face-to-face interviews and informal observations.; Gender is one of the most important internal issues facing volunteer fire departments today, presumably because firefighting and masculinity are so intertwined. The attempts of female firefighters to join and assimilate into departments are often met with concern, if not hostility and dissuasion from their male peers. Not only does the presence of women threaten the homosociality of the firehouse atmosphere, but their femininity calls into question firefighters' associating their own masculinity with the activity itself. This is perhaps the greatest threat of all and the reason why gender influences the joining process, the activities in which firefighters participate, and their retention in these organizations.; Volunteer fire departments are also struggling externally with issues of race and social class since the majority of volunteer firefighters are white and working class. In towns that have a diverse social class composition, the overrepresentation of working class firefighters contributes to the apathy that members of other classes display toward volunteer fire departments. In areas that have high concentrations of racial minorities, the overrepresentation of white firefighters leads to resentment among minority segments of the population who have less of a presence in the departments. These negative feelings rule out the possibility that residents will identify with and respect firefighters and the departments to which they belong.