Inside the Dark Tide

What do molasses, Italian immigrants, influenza, Prohibition, J Edgar Hoover, and good old New England weather have in common?

These are the main threads woven together to tell the tale of one of the major industrial disasters to have occurred in these United States. Stephen Puleo tells the story in Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. In meticulous detail, the threads build upon each other from building the tank in 1915 to set the stage for the event itself on January 15, 1919, and through to the trial that rendered its verdict in April of 1925.

Dark Tide is the selection of the Franklin Public Library for this year’s On the Same Page program. Supported by a grant from the Library Services and Technology Act, a federal source of library funding provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, On the Same Page is a community-wide reading project designed to bring members of the community together around the ideas shared through reading the same book.

Dark Tide was a natural fit for my own evolutionary blogging journey and my entry for this ALAWB.

The story is centered on an enormous steel tank (50 foot tall by 90 foot wide) that held 2.3 million gallons of molasses weighing about 26 million pounds. The tank was located on the water front of Boston’s North End surrounded on three sides by a heavily residential area. The water front made an easy connection from ship to rail for the US Industrial Alcohol (USIA) company that built and operated the tank to supply their refinery in nearby Cambridge.

Here are some passages that I think will give you a flavor of the story that Stephen Puleo has crafted.

Molasses:

Frank Van Gelder transported molasses along the East Coast following the same route that captains before him had traveled since the early 1600’s. For three centuries, the molasses trade has been a vital part of the American and New England economy, as important as fishing or textiles, and a critical component in the country’s political and social development. The dark brown viscous liquid, a by-product in the processing of sugar cane, played a major part in some of the biggest events in American history: in the colonial discontent that lead directly to the Revolution; in the introduction of slavery to the New World and, thus, the Civil War; in the growth of rum and liquor distilleries throughout the United States, and the resulting Prohibition movement; and in ensuring the superiority of Allied firepower that would eventually lead to victory in the First World War/ It all started in Boston and New England.

Italian immigrants:

As Irish and Jews assimilated and earned more money, both ethnic groups moved out of the North End to better areas of the city, although small enclaves remained in the neighborhood until well into the 1930’s. … the Italian population in the North End continued to soar --- by 1910, after a decade of unprecedented immigration, the neighborhood’s population approached thirty thousand people, of whom more than twenty-eight thousand were Italian.

Armistice and Influenza:

The armistice had occurred at the right time for Bostonians, who needed a reason to celebrate after they, and much of the world, had endured a dreadful 1918 autumn battling an influenza epidemic that first showed up in early September. In a little more than two months, it had wrecked havoc of biblical proportions. When it was over more than five hundred thousand Americans would lie dead, and estimates ranged from 20 million to 100 million worldwide. More than 25 percent of the U.S. population became ill, and an estimated eighteen thousand servicemen died of the virus; the government estimated that it would pay the beneficiaries of soldiers and sailors a total of $170 million in insurance premiums.

Prohibition:

Now that the war had ended, USIA had to find additional sources of revenue to tide it over until the country could fully make the transition to a peacetime economy, and the demand for non-military industrial alcohol grew again. … Company executives decided they could retool the Cambridge plant’s manufacturing processes to produce grain alcohol for the rum and liquor industries. … But even this strategy represented a timing challenge, one to be managed carefully for the company to benefit. After years of momentum, it now appeared certain that a Prohibition amendment would be ratified shortly by three-quarters of the states and that an 18th amendment would be added to the U.S. Constitution, banning the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages.

J. Edgar Hoover:

Four days before Christmas (1919), at 5 A.M., the Buford set sail from New York harbor for Russia, carrying 249 passengers, including renowned anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. J. Edgar Hoover, who was special assistant to Attorney General Palmer, watched the ship pull away. Hoover had strongly advocated the Goldman and Berkman deportations, branding them as “beyond doubt, two of the most dangerous anarchists in this country.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer echoed the feelings of the vast majority of the general public: “It is to be hoped and expected that other vessels, larger, more commodious, carrying similar cargoes, will follow in her wake.

Franklin played a part in this story:

… Italian anarchist Luigi Galleani, himself awaiting deportation, delivered an incendiary speech in Taunton, Massachusetts. The next evening, in the nearby town of Franklin, four Italian anarchists, all ardent Galleanists, blew themselves up in what police believe was a botched plot to destroy the mill of the American Woolen Company where they worked and where a strike was in progress.

The weather:

On December 13 and 14, a vicious storm with gale-force winds pounded Boston. The newspapers called it a “superstorm”, the worst in a dozen years. Two massive fronts collided in upstate New York and dumped more than twenty inches of snow west of Boston as well as torrential rain and a driving sleet within the city. Trains were delayed and streets were rendered impassable due to flooding. Heavy wind knocked down electric power lines, chimneys, trees, and signs outside of store fronts.

Gee, just this past December 14th, a similar storm hit Boston and New England paralyzing it with almost as much snow. Are we really seeing the effects of global warming?

Has much else changed since 1919?

• Is the war on terror any different than combating the anarchists
• Molasses may have seceded its place of prominence; only to be replaced by another dark thick liquid (oil) which is wrecking economic and political havoc around the world
• War has moved from Europe to the Middle East and Africa
• The threat of a pandemic is real
• Immigration is still a major issue for America.

There is so much more to the story. As the Library holds additional events for On the Same Page, I want to participate. As the year progresses, I will share what I learn.

In the meantime, I would recommend that amongst the wonderful opportunities to read that we have, pick up a book of your local history.

• What can you learn about your area?
• What role did it play in history?
• Do you find any parallels to current events?

Recall that George Santayana wrote:
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." 

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Steve Sherlock writes his 2 cents exploring the "good experience", "life long learning" and life in general, after handling the "before you blog" list his wonderful wife Dolores  provides him. Together, they are enjoying the empty nest while their daughters are away at college. His sherku and other poetry can be found at quiet poet. More information about his current home town of Franklin, MA can be found at Franklin Matters

Comments

[Rosa Say]

Steve, I must tell you how much I have enjoyed your writing on Franklin, both here and on your own blogs. It truly speaks to the life investment and personal connection you make to Sense of Place, and honoring the contextual richness that place adds to the whole of who we are. It has been a real pleasure for me to share that with you, as best I can virtually, and I think it has added such texture to the Steve Sherlock I feel I know.

As for this book and your post, I had never heard of the great molasses flood before this! I just emerged from a mini rabbit hole after taking your links, truly relishing the learning – what a fascinating bit of history. To think of it; a flood of molasses! Our own dangers here with flowing lava can be much more devastating as is the nature of fire, however fire is also oddly cleansing and healing; I just cannot imagine what those poor people living in Boston at the time had to deal with cleaning that molasses mess up.

Love the concept of the On the Same Page program; has the community responded well?

[Steve Sherlock]

Rosa, thank you very much. Your own sense of place is truly inspiring.

One of the recent sessions had two local historians relating the book and its events to Franklin. There were about a dozen folks in attendence. A couple of interesting tidbits well worth sharing:

1 - The molasses had seeped into the cobblestone roads in the North End such that on warm summer days you could still smell molasses up until the early 1950's when the cobblestones were removed and the roads repaved.

2 - Amongst the more famous anarchists of those days, Sacco and Vanzetti; Sacco spent 9 years living and working in Milford, next door to Franklin.