Puleo is a friend of the Peabody Library, so we love to promote his super-terrific text. Tracing the era from the tank’s construction in 1915 through the multiyear lawsuit that followed the tragedy, Dark Tide uses the drama of the flood to examine the sweeping changes brought about by World War I, Prohibition, the Anarchist movement, the Red Scare, immigration, and the role of big business in society. Its story overlays America’s story during a tumultuous decade in our history. But, as he also points out, the molasses flood was more than an isolated event.
Looking to learn more about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919? Check out these books!ĭark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919: Probably the best known (at least ’round these parts) book about the Great Molasses Flood, reporter Stephen Puleo brings readers into the world of Boston at the time, and makes the smallest details of the date come to live. Today, colored flags marked the site of the tank as city officials and history buffs gathered at Langone Park in the North End to mark the 100th anniversary of the disaster. Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Boston recently used ground-penetrating radar to determine the location of the giant molasses tank that caused the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. The force of the wave was enough to buckle and destroy the elevated railway that ran through the North End at the time: Via Wikipedia Wikicommons As it roiled down the street, the hot molasses congealed, trapping people, cars, trolleys, and everything else in its path. Apparently, when the company received complaints that the tank was leaking, it painted the tank brown to disguise the leaks rather than repair them. The weight of the molasses as it hardened further strained the walls of the tank. A new shipment of molasses had arrived days before, and that liquid was warmer than the air outside. Temperature also had an effect on the tank.
#BOSTON MOLASSES FLOOD TRIAL FULL#
But its steel walls, which ranged from 0.67 inches at the bottom to 0.31 inches at the top, were too thin to support the weight of a full tank of molasses, found a 2014 analysis by Ronald Mayville, a senior structural engineer in the Massachusetts consulting firm of Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger. Designed to hold 2.5 million gallons of liquid, it measured 50 feet tall and 90 feet in diameter. More recent investigations suggest several fundamental problems with the structure of the tank. One of the first rumors to be circulated was that an anarchist’s bomb had broke the tank open, but no proof has ever been found to verify that rumor–which, admittedly, was largely fear-based and shows the effects of the First World War on people’s consciousness at the time. While we don’t have any hard and fast answers as to why the tank failed, a number of theories and facts have come to light.
So on the day of the flood, despite leaks and groans, no one anticipated that the tank was about to burst, unleashing a wave of 2.3 million gallons of molasses that would move 35 miles an hour down Commercial Street.
“It was very customary for children of the North End to go and collect molasses with pails.” “There were often comments made by people around the vicinity that this tank would shudder and groan every time it was full, and it leaked from day one,” Puleo said. There were signs that the tank was faltering, but the people of the North End had gotten used to its instability. As historian of the event Stephen Puleo explained in an interview with WBUR, the residents of the area–one of Boston’s busiest economic districts–knew the tank was structurally unsound before it ruptured: Because the war was over, it was expected that the molasses would be shipped on to a distillery to produce rum. The tank was built to be a holding vessel for molasses until it could be transported to a nearby distillery, where it was converted into industrial alcohol for World War I munitions. This “Great Molasses Flood” killed 21 people, numerous animals, and injured 150. 15, 1919, a tank of molasses stored in Boston’s North End, ruptured, sending a cascading wave of the thick, sugary syrup down the streets.
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