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Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919
by
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 September 2nd 2003)
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Start your review of Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919
I couldn’t help but be incredulous about a “molasses flood.” I was doing research into what books I wanted to read for my “Winter 2013 Disaster Read,” which I originally intended to be about natural disasters, but quickly morphed into disasters in general, and I stumbled across this book. Lo and behold a week later it went onto the Kindle Daily Deal and I snatched it up. It’s almost like Amazon knew (eyes dart back and forth quickly). I originally had this idea of the molasses/cornflake lava tha
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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
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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
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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
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.
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
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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
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
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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 ramificatio
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Feb 28, 2012
Victoria
rated it
it was amazing
Shelves:
nonfiction,
poverty,
urban,
social-history,
favorites,
history,
revolution,
local,
racism,
xenophobia
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.
In January 1919, an enormous molasses tank on the Boston waterfront burst, and unleashed a flood of molasses on one of the most congested sections of the city.
"Molasses flood" sounds like a joke. It sounds funny. It was January. We all know the expression, "as slow as cold molasses."
Twenty-one people died. 150 were injured, many of them very seriously, resulting in life-long crippling problems that either ended or seriously hampered their ability to work. Also, hundreds of working horses were ki ...more
"Molasses flood" sounds like a joke. It sounds funny. It was January. We all know the expression, "as slow as cold molasses."
Twenty-one people died. 150 were injured, many of them very seriously, resulting in life-long crippling problems that either ended or seriously hampered their ability to work. Also, hundreds of working horses were ki ...more
I knew nothing about this disaster that occurred almost a hundred years ago, and I found the book to be fascinating.
The flood was caused by the rupture of a 2.3 million gallon industrial holding tank full of molasses; it killed 21 people, injured many others, and destroyed a neighborhood in Boston's North End. Based on extensive research using trial transcripts and other primary sources, the author has crafted a rich and meticulous narrative of the massive flood, including the tragedy itself as ...more
The flood was caused by the rupture of a 2.3 million gallon industrial holding tank full of molasses; it killed 21 people, injured many others, and destroyed a neighborhood in Boston's North End. Based on extensive research using trial transcripts and other primary sources, the author has crafted a rich and meticulous narrative of the massive flood, including the tragedy itself as ...more
I’ve had this on my to-read shelf for ages (literally years; I saw the author at an event my library more than 5 years ago...). I’m glad I finally read this. Interesting history of Boston and the little-known acts of the tragic molasses flood.
Jul 23, 2011
Kurt
rated it
it was amazing
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
Nov 17, 2012
George
rated it
it was amazing
Recommends it for:
history trivia mavens
Shelves:
non-fiction,
ipad
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
It almost sounds like a bad movie plot - a large tank that held over 2 million gallons of molasses burst in a busy neighborhood of Boston, causing a huge wave of the sticky substance to engulf people, animals, and buildings. However this was not fiction, this really happened in January of 1919 and the gush of molasses caused tremendous damage to homes and businesses, as well as the lives of about twenty people. This is an excellent work of well researched nonfiction that chronicles the establish
...more
An excellent work, as of today (January 30, 2019) the ONLY complete history book that covers the Boston molasses disaster of 1919, I give Stephen Puleo high marks for writing a compelling historical account of one of the worst tragedies in the history of the City of Boston. I had heard stories during my times walking in the City with history classes (the live tours) but had never investigated it myself.
This centennial of this event prompted me to do something about it, so I acquired a used paper ...more
This centennial of this event prompted me to do something about it, so I acquired a used paper ...more
A little nonfic to mix things up, it's a great time.
A nice read for a little not-too long ago history in the city where I can't escape and work and all that stuff.
It's a well paced and very digestably narrated account of events leading up to and as a result of the Great Molasses Flood. The author used sources in a style that made it seem they had interviewed the figures involved in the disaster.
It was fairly easy to get a sense of the author's politics, and it's very likely I do not agree with ...more
A nice read for a little not-too long ago history in the city where I can't escape and work and all that stuff.
It's a well paced and very digestably narrated account of events leading up to and as a result of the Great Molasses Flood. The author used sources in a style that made it seem they had interviewed the figures involved in the disaster.
It was fairly easy to get a sense of the author's politics, and it's very likely I do not agree with ...more
3.75 stars
In 1915, a giant tower meant to store molasses was built in Boston, near the water, near the train tracks, right beside a poor and crowded area of the city. In January 1919, the molasses burst from the tower, creating a wave that eventually left 21 dead and many more injured.
In addition to info on the tower and the disaster, the book included information on politics at the time and other happenings (the war, the Spanish flu). It followed a few families who were affected or who had som ...more
In 1915, a giant tower meant to store molasses was built in Boston, near the water, near the train tracks, right beside a poor and crowded area of the city. In January 1919, the molasses burst from the tower, creating a wave that eventually left 21 dead and many more injured.
In addition to info on the tower and the disaster, the book included information on politics at the time and other happenings (the war, the Spanish flu). It followed a few families who were affected or who had som ...more
The author, Stephen Puleo, states at the start that this is the first book about the Boston Molasses Flood. It might as well be the last, because he covers every aspect so well that it's hard to imagine what anyone else could add.
The collapse of the U.S.Industrial Alcohol storage tank, which flooded Boston's North End with over 2 million gallons of molasses in 1915, killing 21 and destroying much of the surrounding neighborhood, was the result of corporate greed, disregard for low-income immigr ...more
The collapse of the U.S.Industrial Alcohol storage tank, which flooded Boston's North End with over 2 million gallons of molasses in 1915, killing 21 and destroying much of the surrounding neighborhood, was the result of corporate greed, disregard for low-income immigr ...more
COMBINE: incompetence, United States Industrial Alcohol (USIA) leadership ignoring and covering up obvious problems (Hey – molasses is leaking through the seams of this gray tank and soaking the ground. If we have the tank painted rust-color and put wood chips on the ground, no one will be able to tell. Now we just have to keep shooing away the neighborhood kids who keep sneaking in to collect molasses and firewood), dishonest steel suppliers, anarchists in the woodworks…
And SHAKE (or just pump
...more
A bit overwrought and quite overlong. An 8,000-word article would have handled the topic. In fact, here, read this quite short article instead: https://www.aps.org/publications/apsn... -- that's more interesting than the book and quite short and it will tell you pretty much everything you need to know.
A tank of molasses collapsed in 1915. It was the company's fault but they tried to blame everyone else, as you'd expect.
21 people died in the initial (and only) wave of goo (which is about how many ...more
A tank of molasses collapsed in 1915. It was the company's fault but they tried to blame everyone else, as you'd expect.
21 people died in the initial (and only) wave of goo (which is about how many ...more
Aug 06, 2017
Tracy Fleming-Swehla
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
non-fiction,
book-club
Reading this for my bookclub discussion was my main motivation to actually slog through the lawyer-y-ness of this very dry but very interesting book. I found it extremely boring, but the event of the molasses tank crashing down on Boston is horrifying.
This book is so well researched and I'm glad to know the story. I understand, after forcing myself to read on, why so many details were included about the trial, the history of Ogden and other backstory details of people and events...the details h ...more
This book is so well researched and I'm glad to know the story. I understand, after forcing myself to read on, why so many details were included about the trial, the history of Ogden and other backstory details of people and events...the details h ...more
An event that most New Englanders are not even aware of. Imagine a 50 foot tidal wave of molasses destroying homes, killing and injuring people. All brought about by big business, greed, and the almighty dollar.
Big business, always focused on making money, not caring about safety standards. The poor, living from day to day, trying to support their families. Finally, the anarchists, caring about nothing, other than bringing down the country.
The characters, as well as the incident itself, have fad ...more
Big business, always focused on making money, not caring about safety standards. The poor, living from day to day, trying to support their families. Finally, the anarchists, caring about nothing, other than bringing down the country.
The characters, as well as the incident itself, have fad ...more
4.5/5 will be using this in class as an anchoring event for the study of fluids (with a healthy dose of ethics, corporate/scientific/engineering responsibility, and American History thrown in as well).
This isn’t a period of time I knew very well, so this filled in many gaps in my historical knowledge of the first part of the 20th century. It also lays plain the “be good to big business and it will be good for everyone “ political trope that we often still here today.
This isn’t a period of time I knew very well, so this filled in many gaps in my historical knowledge of the first part of the 20th century. It also lays plain the “be good to big business and it will be good for everyone “ political trope that we often still here today.
I had heard about the Great Boston Molasses Flood, but this book brings to life the story behind it. From the innocent lives it took, to an era of corporate greed, to the pre- and post-WWI America, to the anti-immigrant feeling of the time, Mr. Puleo's book is highly accessible, readable and just plain good! Recommended for history buffs who want to perhaps learn something new.
Material is basically a legal battle, a political thriller, social commentary, anticap yelling, and slice-of-life history, wrapped around a fascinating/terrifying engineering disaster. I'm a nerd and a Boston transplant and found it really interesting, although Puleo may need some time away from italics formatting.
I love narrative history and this book didn't disappoint me. I love that it fully described the events of the world during that time and the mood of the country, because all of those things precipitated the molasses flood and had an affect on the outcome of the trial.
a fabulous read about so much more than the Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. an overview of The Great War and Italian anarchists in America, including Sacco and Vanzetti and the ridiculous Michael Dukakis.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Play Book Tag: Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 / Stephen Puleo | 1 | 7 | 28 juin 08:47 | |
| South Shore Readers: 95th Anniversary of Molasses Flood | 1 | 15 | 15 jan. 15:54 |
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Stephen Puleo is an author, historian, university teacher, public speaker, and communications professional. His seven narrative nonfiction works include:
• Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America's First Humanitarian Mission (March 2020)
-- American Treasures: The Secret Efforts to Save the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Get ...more
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