Synopses & Reviews
Shortly after noon on January 15, 1919, a fifty-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses collapsed on Bostons waterfront, disgorging its contents as a fifteen-foot-high wave of molasses that briefly traveled at thirty-five miles per hour. When the tide receded, a section of the citys North End had been transformed into a war zone. The Great Boston Molasses Flood claimed the lives of twenty-one people and scores of animals, injured 150, and caused widespread destruction.
But the molasses flood was more than an isolated event. Its story overlays Americas story during a tumultuous decade in our history. Tracing the era from the tanks 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.
Stephen Puleo is a former award-winning newspaper reporter and now works in corporate public relations in the Boston area. He has done extensive research on Bostons North End, where the molasses flood took place, and is a frequent contributor to American History magazine. He lives in the Boston area.
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Toole, author Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820-1920
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The great molasses disaster of 1919 in Boston
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s North End provided a dramatic prelude to a new era in post-World War I America. Stephen Puleo brings it to life with vivid prose, using the dreadful catastrophe as a lens through which to view the panorama of a changing Boston, as well as to survey the major events that would shape the future of twentieth-century America. This is a must-read for anyone interested in Boston history.
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Connor, author of The Hub: Boston Past and Present
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everything you want in a work of history.
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"'Dark Tide' is written in a compelling narrative style, and Puleo, as it turns out, is a more than competent storyteller… what matters most here is that in 'Dark Tide,' Puleo has done justice to a gripping historical story, no matter what the disaster's place in history"
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"Why has no one ever told this story before? The Boston molasses flood lives dimly in popular memory, but no historian has explored it fully until now. The results of Stephen Puleo's labors combine exhaustive research, shrewd analysis, careful placement in local and national context, and an ability to tell a good tale – everything you want in a work of history."--James O'Toole, author Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820-1920
Synopsis
Shortly after noon on January 15, 1919, a fifty-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a fifteen-foot-high wave of molasses that briefly traveled at thirty-five miles per hour. When the tide receded, a section of the city's North End had been transformed into a war zone. The Great Boston Molasses Flood claimed the lives of twenty-one people and scores of animals, injured 150, and caused widespread destruction.
But the molasses flood was more than an isolated event. Its story overlays America's story during a tumultuous decade in our history. 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.
About the Author
Stephen Puleo is author of the critically acclaimed Boston-area bestseller Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. A former award-winning newspaper reporter and contributor to American History magazine, he holds a master's degree in history and wrote his thesis on Italian immigration and the settlement of Boston's North End. He donates a portion of his book proceeds to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), the leading charitable funder and advocate of juvenile (Type 1) diabetes research. Stephen and his wife, Kate, live in the Boston area.