The Brass Eagle and Beaver (United States and Canada)
The brass eagle or beaver which holds the top of the front piece to the leather helmet will often become damaged with wear - The eagle has no particular significance and serves no practical purpose. Its origins can be traced to around 1825 when an unknown sculptor created a commemorative figure for the grave of a volunteer firefighter. Firefighters were not wearing eagles prior to this, but it has been part of fire helmets ever since. The beaver ornament, adorned on many Canadian firefighter's helmets, is said to represent the relentless hard work, focused mission and undying dedication that North American firefighters are known for.
The ornament sticks up and out into the air, which causes it to catch its beak on window sashes, telephone wires and other obstacles. It frequently becomes dented, bent or knocked off. The ornament is frequently criticized and it is said that it would be cheaper and safer to do away with it.
Many fire departments have traditional helmet with more modern plastic and composite helmets that have no eagle or beaver device - Jokingly referred to as "salad bowls" and "slick tops" for their streamlined shape. However, many firefighters and fire departments still retain the traditional helmet (composite or leather) as a matter of tradition.
Read more about this topic: Firefighter's Helmet
Famous quotes containing the words brass, eagle, beaver and/or states:
“Thee for my recitative,
Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day
declining,
Thee in thy panoply, thy measur’d dual throbbing and thy beat
convulsive,
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“The Eagle has landed.”
—Neil Armstrong (b. 1930)
“This ferry was as busy as a beaver dam, and all the world seemed anxious to get across the Merrimack River at this particular point, waiting to get set over,—children with their two cents done up in paper, jail-birds broke lose and constable with warrant, travelers from distant lands to distant lands, men and women to whom the Merrimack River was a bar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The people of the United States have been fortunate in many things. One of the things in which we have been most fortunate has been that so far, due perhaps to certain basic virtues in our traditional ways of doing things, we have managed to keep the crisis of western civilization, which has devastated the rest of the world and in which we are as much involved as anybody, more or less at arm’s length.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)