"Dark Tide : the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919" by Stephen Puleo

[Ed Augusts]

DARK TIDE : The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919" With a New
Afterword [in the softcover first edition only], Beacon Press,
Boston. 2003. Trade softcover. First edition. 273 pgs. incl. Index,
List of Deceased, Bibliographic Essay, Acknowledgments. (The new
Afterword contains a 5-pg letter the author just discovered containing
an additonal first-person account of the disaster. Too late to be
included in the hardcover first edition, it appeared in the softcover
version instead)

I would suppose the Great Molasses Flood is common knowledge and
taught in elementary schools all over New England, for it is a strange
and singular, pretty 'syrupy' story, with lots of local interest for
Bostonians; but I'm not kidding, NO notice of it ever got to the West
Coas, as I've mentioned this to several friends, here, and they said,
"WHAT?" One of them grew up in New York, just one or two states over,
and SHE never heard of the Molasses Flood, either. That's kind of
like the idea that in Massachusetts, nobody heard of the 1906
Earthquake, which I don't believe for a minute. Besides, disasters
are common in California, but they are NOT common in Boston, I can't
think of a single disaster affecting Boston after the Battle of Bunker
Hill. Even the 1938 New England Hurricane hit west of there, not
affecting Boston much.

But here it is... the fascinating little-known tale of 2.3 million
gallons of molasses in a tank 50 feet high and 90 feet wide "which
suddenly collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents in
a 15-foot high wave of molasses that traveled 35 miles an hour through
the surrounding neighborhood, demolishing wooden houses, even the
brick fire station. The number of dead wasn't known for days. It
would be years before a landmark court battle determined who was
responsible for the disaster." (That's from the back cover!)

But as for the court battle, it is clear in the narrative that the
tank was leaking molasses from a number of seams for many months
before it burst, and a responsible owner would have built a new tank
instead of caulking-up the seams on the old one. Some of the children
who would later perish, would eagerly bring home jars full of molasses
that was leaking out of the seams of the tank, pleasing their
mothers. You'd think a leaking tank 50 feet high and 90 feet wide
would alarm the neighborhood, but instead the ones who knew about the
leaks must have been grateful for the free molasses! Plus, nobody
expects something massive and official to come apart at the seams like
that, yet "the bigger they are, the harder they fall," or so goes the
folk-saying.

There is pathos in the build-up to the tank collapse, in the story of
the aftermath of the World War, and the Spanish Flu epidemic which,
once 200 people had died from it, mandated the closing of the Boston
schools. But the most pathos is to be found in the living conditions
of poor immigrant families who lived on the edge of the industrial
area beside the harbor, and who suffered the most, as their small
children became victims, embedded within the nearly-opaque onrushing
wave. The wall of molasses spread faster than a person could run from
it. Suffocating victims were almost impossible to pull out from the
yucky, sticky mass. Everything in the path of the molasses, from
animals to autos, to the trestles of the elevated trolley track, fell
before the onrushing flood. I am stunned that I, a student of
history, never ran across mention of this disaster until now!

There's an interesting tie-in here between the conditions that led to
the disaster --the overfilling of a leaky holding tank-- and the
adoption of the 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale of alcholic
beverages, which gave manufacturers a one year grace period before
Prohibition took effect, and the arrival of a big batch of molasses to
be put into this big holding tank had to do with a final push to
bottle and sell as much 'booze' as possible before the law went into
effect in 1920. The book was published by Beacon Press, "under the
auspices of the Unitarian-Universalist Church", so we look for a
subtle message here and there that jives with the progressive
Uniterian-Universalist principles.

This is one of the books I am offering for sale right now at my
www.edaugusts.com on my pg. 4, the "Edslist" feature. It is
ALPHABETIZED by AUTHOR. Page 4 is Books, 5 is LP record albums, 6 is
Art & soon to bea added -- knick-knacks. Thanks, ------Ed