Book Review: Dark Tide, the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919

Book Review – Dark Tide, the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919

Stephen Puleo

Beacon Press

2003, 2019

270 pages

The moment I saw this title I had to know everything. Molasses flood? Was this book taken directly from my dreams? I never expected there would have been a molasses flood at some point in a major city, let alone my adopted major metro – Boston.

I learned so much from this book. Namely about the industry (former?) of molasses refinement and the uses of the resulting alcohol across numerous professions. Notably, molasses was the primary sweetener for many until replaced by sugar about 100 years ago. But sweetness was not the main use of this potent Caribbean elixir. You see, molasses had been used for 300 years to make not only rum, but alcohol for munitions. Author Stephen Puleo does a fantastic job laying out the connection to both slavery and the upcoming WW1 that molasses was stuck to. Seeking the almighty profit of warring drove the creators of the failed tank to skimp on several safety measures during the build and proper testing was never done. The tank stood for only four years before buckling under the strain of 2.3 million gallons of molasses, sending it careening through Boston’s North End. The court case to determine fault lasted longer than the tank…

The Telltale Heart of Isaac Gonzalez

The book opens with an insomnia laden walk through 1918 Boston. A security guard for the infamous tank makes a nightly trip to the precarious tower in hopes he can sound an alarm should anything give way. His name is Isaac Gonzales and he’d mentioned many times to superiors about leaks in the giant tank. It was well known to poor folk in the area anyone could collect a pail full of molasses with a bit of patience.

You’ll be enwrapped, eager to know just how something so monumental can fail. Puelo does a splendid job creating the world of 1919 from which to draw a well-rounded view. The political climate was shockingly like today (showing how rhetoric does not change, only the subjects within the argument). Yesteryear’s charge was Italian anarchists, radicals, hell bent on disrupting American society… sound familiar. While there were was a series of thwarted mail bombs attempts that created unrest, they had nothing to do with the laborers that lived near the Boston’s North End.

USIA vs The World

In 1915 United States Industrial Alcohol was doing good business, but it could be better. Distilling molasses into alcohol for making munitions (and other unsavory articles) was sticky business, made more sticky by those who would leverage their resources over your needs. Renting storage capacity for their molasses had USIA reeling, they needed their own tank, and they needed it fast. The company was already supplying bombs to Europe for WWI, and with constant rumblings of an expanded war, USIA’s efforts would be needed twofold (or more).

With little beyond paper approvals, a massive tank was erected on the frigid Boston waterfront. Construction was delayed, rushed, delayed again. Rivets were missed, men fell ill and replaced by any jobber they could find. Miraculously the tank was finished with a week to spare before the first tanker of molasses would arrive from the Caribbean. Standing on 20 foot supports, the 90-foot-wide, 50-foot-high tank’s shadow covered everything, foreshadowing a darkness to come.

USIA would waste little time filling the tank, which was a slow, plodding process that needed attention at all hours of the day. Some shipments would require 40 hours to pump the molasses from the ship up into the tank. From the very first unloading there were questions raised about sounds coming from the tank. Sounds they shouldn’t be hearing. Despite the cold, despite the warnings the laborers bent to the schedule of the almighty dollar, USIA carried on.

Somewhere in the first couple months Isaac Gonzalez would make his first of many ignored accounts of the leaking tank. The neighborhood could not stop watching the behemoth ooze its sweet nectar. Poor kids were regularly chased off after their pails had filled with a gallon of the good stuff. The workers knew it, the public knew it, but the leaks would have to hold because the United States of America would be going to war. Leak or not, USIA had contracts to fill. The tank was caulked to fill the cracks, when that didn’t work, they painted it brown so the leaks were harder to see. Then they caulked it again, all the while it was making sounds they shouldn’t have been hearing. Then one day it made a sound we hope is never heard again.

Faster Than Molasses in January

On January 15th, 1919, around noon, the 2.3-million-gallon tank burst sending viscus molasses careening across Boston’s North End. The wall of molasses was 25’ feet at its height and spread in all directions. Its force was strong enough to push train cars and leveled businesses. It crushed train tracks, carriages, houses, stables, fire stations and factories. Indifferent towards life, it would drown horses, pigs, dogs, cats, rats, pigeons, and people alike. Molasses would take 21 human lives that day and ruin hundreds more.

Suffocation, crushing, impalement, some of the most awful grievances put upon humans were experienced that day, and because the USIA wanted to clear a few hurdles without going over them. $30-50 million in today’s terms, the damage went far beyond human tragedy. Despite the destruction USIA kept the illusion of innocence from the outset. The company went as far to claim anarchists had planted a bomb in the tank and they would lean on this assumption through the entire court process of the coming years.

The molasses filled basements. It covered train platforms and sidewalks, leaving sticky trails through Boston for weeks. Rescue teams resorted to washing the entirety of the North End with briny water, the only thing that would break up the thick substance. It would take months to fish out the last missing bodies from the harbor, and years to pin the blame on USIA.

Silver Lining to a Dark Molasses Cloud

Sullen air hung over Boston for years after this catastrophe. WWI had ended and the alcohol distilling industry would never recover. An arduous, multi-year court case would depose more than 900 witnesses and collect untold hours of testimony that had a chilling effect on Big Business. For the better part of 20 years rambunctious, money-hungry businesses were overlooking safety in the name of profit, but that would soon change.

Thanks in large part to the judgements in this case, new safety measures were put in place that required engineers to sign off on building plans. This along with more public overview and a slew of other checks and balances, would begin the process of putting the world right. Annual payouts to cover health complications were eventually agreed and the USIA would pay dearly in numerous ways.

The writing was on the wall for USIA. Their distilling plant in Brooklyn had survived an attempted bombing but the company would never rebuild in Boston. Thanks to an upsurge in subsidized sugar production (and the way we blow things up changed) industrial alcohol found its market share shrinking. While the product still had many uses and benefits, molasses production and consumption worldwide dwindled as King Sugar swept the global market.

This overview is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this story. I dare you to not get stuck to this cloying title!