A fire at Our Lady of Angels grade school in Chicago killed
87 children and three nuns on December 1, 1958; five more
children later died as a result of their injuries.

The Our Lady of Angels School was operated by the Sisters
of Charity in Chicago.

Widely referred to as the ditto machine, the spirit duplicator
was essentially an early printer invented in 1923 by Wilhelm
Ritzerfeld. Its name "spirit duplicator" refers to the alcohols
or “spirits” which were used as inks.

They were mainly used in organizations like schools, churches,
and various clubs. Basically, any place that often needed to
produce learning materials, newsletters, brochures, and event
flyers. Because hey had the ability to print multiple colors in a
single pass, they became very popular with cartoonists.

Initially, the fluid consisted of a 50/50 mix of isopropanol and
methanol. In 1938 a nonflammable solvent came out and had
a pleasant odor. It was 10% of monofluoro tri-chloro methane
and 90% of a mixture of 50% methyl alcohol, 40% ethyl alcohol,
5% water and 5% of ethylene glycol mono-ethyl ether. 

Sarah Norman 

?
1959

Crayola was founded as Binney & Smith Company by cousins
Edwin Binney and Charles Harold Smith (below) in New York
City in 1885.

  
Edwin Binney                        C. Harold Smith

Comparison of the original two Crayola No. 8 boxes
showing each side of the 1904 Gold Medal they
received.

CAMILLI
BOHANNON

The Our Lady of Angels School was operated by the Sisters of Charity in
Chicago. In 1958, there were well over 1,200 students enrolled at the school,
which occupied a large, old building. Unfortunately, little in the way of fire prevention was done before December 1958. The building did not have any sprinklers and no regular preparatory drills were conducted. When a small
fire broke out in a pile of trash in the basement, it led to disaster on this
day in 1958.

The fire probably began about 2:30 p.m. and, within minutes, teachers on
the first floor smelled it. These teachers led their classes outside, but did
not sound a general alarm. The school’s janitor discovered the fire at 2:42
and shouted for the alarm to be rung. However, he was either not heard or
the alarm system did not operate properly, and the students in classrooms
on the second floor were completely unaware of the rapidly spreading
flames beneath them.

It took only a few more minutes for the fire to reach the second floor where
panic ensued.

When the fire was finally extinguished several hours later, the authorities
found that 90 students and 3 nuns had been killed in the fire.

Panicked parents raced to Our Lady of the Angels from all over
the city, and the police soon had to set up barriers to restrain
the anxious crowd of about 5,000 parents and onlookers.

Officials inspect a classroom after the 1958 fire at Our Lady of the
Angels School.