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16th out of 144 books
—
145 voters
Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919
Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters was playing cards in Boston's North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like roaring surf, one of them said later. Like a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence, said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window-"Oh my God!" he shouted to the other men, "Run!"
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Paperback, 280 pages
Published
September 16th 2004
by Beacon Press
(first published 2003)
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Dark Tide is a well-written history of the collapse of a 2.3 million gallon molasses tank that occurred in Boston in 1919. The book encompasses the events from the inception of the molasses storage tank (Part I), through the tank’s collapse (Part II), to the ensuing litigation (Part III). The book is well-researched and well-written. Puleo clearly knows the subject matter. Aided by, among other thing, thousands of pages of court transcripts, he is able to effectively bring the people connected t...more
This historical event is yet another example of the truthiness of Hanlon's Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” In this case, a cowardly middle manager with no relevant experience cuts corners to please his clueless bosses, constructing a huge, dangerous, leaky tower for molasses in a crowded slum. He disregards direct pleas from people who work at the structure and feel that it is dangerous, insisting that he, the middle manager, knows better. Howe...more
On January 15, 1919 a 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses ruptures destroying homes and businesses in the oceanfront Italian community. This disaster killed twenty-one people and injured over one-hundred people. People were left wondering what caused the tank to collapse and if it was preventable. Puleo tells this little known story from the first hand accounts if those that were working for the United States Industrial Alcohol Company (USIA) that owned and mainta...more
During the height of World War I, the United States Industrial Alcohol company hastily constructed an enormous storage tank for molasses - a key ingredient in the alcohol used to make the munitions supplying America and its allies during the conflict. That tank, capable of holding 2.3 million gallons was built in a poor area of Boston's North End that was convenient to the harbor for the offload of molasses, but just as importantly, in a part of the city heavily populated by poorly educated, una...more
Jul 13, 2012
Newport Librarians
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Shelves:
librarian-s-favorites,
adult-non-fiction
Did you ever hear of the “great molasses flood” in Boston? I grew up hearing about this event – probably because it took place in and around Boston’s North End, and we had ties to and visited the North End frequently. But even I took the reality of this event with a grain of salt.
But it actually happened. Around noon on January 15th, 1919, a fifty-foot-tall tank FILLED with over 2 million gallons of thick, black molasses collapsed – creating a massive tidal wave (fifteen feet high, some say) tha...more
But it actually happened. Around noon on January 15th, 1919, a fifty-foot-tall tank FILLED with over 2 million gallons of thick, black molasses collapsed – creating a massive tidal wave (fifteen feet high, some say) tha...more
Puleo does a fairly admirable job of extracting a living tale from dry court records and newspaper accounts of one of the most catastrophic events in Boston's history. In January 1919, a 2.3 million gallon tank of molasses located in Boston's bustling North End burst, wreaking death and destruction in its wake. Most people -- myself included -- laugh in disbelief when they first hear of the incident. But the towering wave, which traveled at 35 miles an hour, claimed the lives of 21 people, and t...more
This book was great - a nonfiction re: the "Great Molasses Spill" in the North End in 1919. I had heard of the disaster (in which 21 people lost their lives, hundreds were injured and multiple structures destroyed). But, I had absolutely NO IDEA of the events tied in with the event...like Sacco & Vanzetti and the anarchist movement, World War I, the rum/slavery/molasses triangle trade. Having connections in the North End helped keep me interested during the descriptions of the legal ramific...more
This is an entertaining and immensely readible book.
Puleo does a great job in making the events and people involved in the 1919 Boston Molasses Flood come to life. He follows the construction of the molasses tank in 1915 through the end of the court case in 1925. The key point in the story is (obviously) the day the molasses tank broke, spilling 2.3 million gallons of molasses in one of Boston's busiest neighborhood killing 20 and injuring hundreds.
Puleo also tries to put the molasses tank in...more
Puleo does a great job in making the events and people involved in the 1919 Boston Molasses Flood come to life. He follows the construction of the molasses tank in 1915 through the end of the court case in 1925. The key point in the story is (obviously) the day the molasses tank broke, spilling 2.3 million gallons of molasses in one of Boston's busiest neighborhood killing 20 and injuring hundreds.
Puleo also tries to put the molasses tank in...more
Nov 19, 2012
George
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
history trivia mavens
Shelves:
ipad,
non-fiction
INTERESTING, ENTERTAINING, INFORMATIVE.
“So that this steel reservoir contained on the day of the accident a weight of molasses equal to 130 hundred-ton locomotive engines…or thirteen thousand Ford automobiles.”
History, mystery, and courtroom drama, with the singularly bizarre circumstance of, as my goodreads.com friend, Newengland so well phrased it, "death by molasses.” Oh yeah, and along with a major disaster, there's a World War, the Great Influenza Pandemic, the onset of prohibition, and bun...more
“So that this steel reservoir contained on the day of the accident a weight of molasses equal to 130 hundred-ton locomotive engines…or thirteen thousand Ford automobiles.”
History, mystery, and courtroom drama, with the singularly bizarre circumstance of, as my goodreads.com friend, Newengland so well phrased it, "death by molasses.” Oh yeah, and along with a major disaster, there's a World War, the Great Influenza Pandemic, the onset of prohibition, and bun...more
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This fascinating book tells the story of one of the most bizarre disasters in our country's history. In 1919, on the eve of Prohibition, a storage silo in Boston's North End was being filled with molasses which was about to be shipped off to be turned into alcohol. In the cold of January the tank was half filled with nearly a million gallons of molasses. The tank had been leaking for years. Children from the neighborhood came daily with their buckets to collect the leaked molasses for their moth...more
What an outstanding find of a book. I had to read this for a history book club I am involved with and I couldn't have had a happier surprise. I don't think I would have ever picked up a book to read about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 in Boston unless I had to. I am really glad I did...
The book is divided into three sections. The first is the lead up to the event. This was my favorite section as it introduced to us many different individuals with various backgrounds. It also gave us the state...more
The book is divided into three sections. The first is the lead up to the event. This was my favorite section as it introduced to us many different individuals with various backgrounds. It also gave us the state...more
Anyone who had parents who grew up in Boston heard the story passed down about the great Molasses Flood. It was usually told in an offhand manner, ending with "on a hot day you can still smell the molasses". This is the whole story, and there isn't anything offhand about it. A very good piece of social, as well as labor history. I, of course, ended up taking the book to the scene of the crime and retracing the steps. Fascinating.
3 likes · like · see review
Aug 02, 2011
Kurt
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Bostonians, lawyers, or anyone interested in the history of the early 20th century
Recommended to Kurt by:
Dennis Lehane, in his list of sources for The Given Day
The Boston Molasses Flood is my favorite quirky historical moment in Boston, and this book showed me how much I didn't know about the tragedy. Puleo is a powerful historian, weaving together a wide context of political movements, changing views of big business, and military technologies into a hammock in which to rest this one event of 1919. He draws from contemporary newspaper accounts, personal correspondence, and thousands of pages of trial transcripts to present well-documented portraits of...more
This book was great. It doesn't cease to amaze me how a story can come to life and come crashing through your sensitivity barrier when it's retold with human characters and context and a narrative arc. I've heard about this molasses flood tons of times before, but until I read about the force of it tearing through buildings, trolley tresses, carrying along its surface giant sheets of steel like pieces of paper... I never could have imagined the destruction and horror for the people who were caug...more
Dark Tide will be the Beverly Reads slection for 2009, and I am very pleased that author Stephen Puleo will be invited to the the keynote speaker at our North Shore Young Writers' Conference in March at Waring School. If this piece were not so grounded in historical data and court transcripts, I would be tempted to compare it to Capote's IN COLD BLOOD because of its engaging narrative style and its ability to recreate the mindsets of the proncipal players. While the event itself may not be as bi...more
p. 197
"In a Memorial Day speech in the near future, Odgen [Judge Hugh Ogden soldier-lawyer who presided over the lawsuit against USIA with heroic impartiality:]would observe: "We have prospered. We have sold goods at high prices. We have accumulated the largest stock of gold any nation ever possessed, but have we done anymore than that? Have we in our blindness gained the whole world and lost our own soul? It was not to ensure material prosperity that our soldiers fought and died...that the rel...more
"In a Memorial Day speech in the near future, Odgen [Judge Hugh Ogden soldier-lawyer who presided over the lawsuit against USIA with heroic impartiality:]would observe: "We have prospered. We have sold goods at high prices. We have accumulated the largest stock of gold any nation ever possessed, but have we done anymore than that? Have we in our blindness gained the whole world and lost our own soul? It was not to ensure material prosperity that our soldiers fought and died...that the rel...more
A very interesting read on what usually is a humorous anecdote in Boston history. A tank of molasses explodes, flooding the streets of Boston, leaving behind a sugary residue that could be smelled for years afterward, usually on hot days. What many people don't realize, and which Puleo uncovers, is the extent of the physical and personal damage caused by this disaster, including how many people were actually killed in the event.
Puleo focuses on the human aspect, whether a worker, a local immigr...more
Puleo focuses on the human aspect, whether a worker, a local immigr...more
This book was an eye-opening look at an event which profoundly changed America, that hardly anyone knows about. An above ground storage tank of molasses collapsed and killed people. Molasses was used to create munitions during the first world war, as well as rum. So huge quantities of it were necessary. There were simply no regulations on storage tanks, where they could be located, or how they needed to be built. This book creates Boston in the early decades of the twentieth century and tells ab...more
I liked, but not loved, this accessibly written book. I had no idea that there had been such an event, and the thought of it was pretty horrific. For all neo-cons, this is what happens when industry and corporations are left to regulate themselves. There is a reason for inspections and oversight of big business. To think of the corners that were cut in the name of saving money and profit at the expense of lives is completely deplorable. Also, the cost of the clean up must have been astronomical...more
I really enjoyed this book, even with its dark subject matter. Cut into three parts (construction, flood and aftermath, civil court case), the book truly tries to relate everything that was happening in that time surrounding the flood. While it can be repetitive at times, it recounts the history as stories and fragments taken from primary sources. It doesn't try to hoist emotions on the key characters, instead Puelo invokes what the reader would feel if placed in a certain situation.
I spent a go...more
I spent a go...more
May 03, 2009
Irene
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
People interested in Boston/U.S. History
Recommended to Irene by:
Article in The Boston Globe
Shelves:
non-fiction
What a fascinating story!
As a Bostonian, I always knew there had once been a "big molasses flood" in the North End, but it's generally talked about as a whimsical piece of Boston trivia. Any reference to it rarely goes beyond the fact that it happened, and usually the reference ends with something like, "...and on hot summer days in the North End, you can still detect the faint smell of molasses."
This book tells the whole story with the respect and gravity it deserves. People suffered and died,...more
As a Bostonian, I always knew there had once been a "big molasses flood" in the North End, but it's generally talked about as a whimsical piece of Boston trivia. Any reference to it rarely goes beyond the fact that it happened, and usually the reference ends with something like, "...and on hot summer days in the North End, you can still detect the faint smell of molasses."
This book tells the whole story with the respect and gravity it deserves. People suffered and died,...more
I was blown away by this, how could something this huge have happened and I didn't know? It also made me wish I knew all history, every single interesting event that ever happened. So, in 1919, there was a gigantic molasses flood in Boston, which is interesting enough. Add in the political climate of the times, with anarchists in every doorway, a changing Federal climate, corporations more concerned with profit than safety, and a bunch of hard-working people doing their level best to keep their...more
3 likes · like · see review
Mar 28, 2012
Victoria
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Shelves:
social-history,
local,
nonfiction,
history,
poverty,
revolution,
urban,
racism,
xenophobia,
greed,
favorites
I absolutely loved this book! What struck me most was the fact that Stephen Puleo gave the molasses flood a number of human faces. The majority of the book is narrative by and about the people involved in the flood. The rest of the book is a chronicle of the time period. A huge part of this book is about showing the world of the mid 1910s and into the twenties, spanning the anarchist and labor movements, World War I, the rise of big business, and prohibition. Many of the quotes in Dark Tide reso...more
The writing style was a bit overwrought for my taste at times, so let's compare it to all the other books out there about the Great Molasses Flood, oh wait, there aren't any.
This is a wonderful book, the true story of the people of the City of Boston in 1918 who experienced the "Great Molasses Flood" in the North End of the city. Stephen Puleo has carefully crafted a human story out of a long ago tragedy that is remembered by those who lived through it and only vaguely spoken of by people who had no connection. He treats the statistics seriously with empathy and compassion, and gives a clear view of the eventual ramifications this event had on engineering standards...more
Historical non-fiction that reads like a novel about the devastating molasses spill in Boston's North End in 1917. Puleo documents the tragedy by reporting it's significance in the context of the times, specifically with regard to immigration patterns at the time, bigotry against the burgeoning Italian community and the rise of the anarchist movement of the day (Sacco and Vanzetti), WW1 and start of a familiar trend of national politics and regulations favoring big business and one of the earlie...more
This book was so interesting, I found myself doing research on some of the historical details referenced (League of Nations, Sacco and Venzetti, prohibition). Puleo uses the story of Boston's molasass flood to paint a picture of life in Boston (and America) from WWI to prohibition. It was a formative time in this country's history, for industry, politics, morals, industries' relationship to their labor force and citizens' relationship to their government. Puleo touches on all of this in his tell...more
What an interesting book on an unusual happening.
WHO'D a Thunk????
Sounds so weird that a massive wall of molasses (in January, no less)would burst out over Boston waterfront, but just look over your shoulder and suppose you saw a 15 ft wall of molasses flowing your way at 35 mph??? Gulp........
You can read about it on Wikipedia, but I recommend the book for it's well developed insights into the people affected, the particulars of the injuries/deaths/damage and just as much for the background on...more
WHO'D a Thunk????
Sounds so weird that a massive wall of molasses (in January, no less)would burst out over Boston waterfront, but just look over your shoulder and suppose you saw a 15 ft wall of molasses flowing your way at 35 mph??? Gulp........
You can read about it on Wikipedia, but I recommend the book for it's well developed insights into the people affected, the particulars of the injuries/deaths/damage and just as much for the background on...more
Fascinating book about an amazing historical event in the city of Boston...one that not too many people actually are aware of. It changed the face of Boston and ended in one of the largest civil lawsuits of its day. It impacted the molasses trend, construction compliance, safety standards, litigation, along with attitudes towards big business as well as citizenry. This book tells not only of the actual molasses flood of 1919 but also of the historical setting which makes it really come alive. It...more
The subject is, well, weird. During WWI, molases from the Caribean was shipped to boston to be used to produce industrial alcohol for the war effort. One company slapped together a huge tank (a million gallons or something like that) right near the docks and right near the slum tenements in Boston. The tank colapsed. The molases knocked down buildings etc. killing 19(?). Wonderful story about the times, the place, the people involved. One of the more odd books you are likely to read, but imagine...more
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Stephen Puleo is an author, historian, university teacher, public speaker, and communications professional. His books include A City So Grand: The Rise of an American Metropolis, Boston 1850-1900; The Boston Italians: A Story of Pride, Perseverance and Paesani, from the Years of the Great Immigration to the Present Day; Due to Enemy Action: The True World War II Story of the USS Eagle 56; and Dark...more
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