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Dark Tide

The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919

Author: Stephen Puleo

A new Beacon Classics edition of the only adult book on one of the odder disasters in US history—and the greed, disregard for immigrants, and lack of safety standards that led to it

Shortly after noon on January 15, 1919, a 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses collapsed on Boston’s waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that briefly traveled 35 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 21 people and scores of animals, injured 150, and caused widespread destruction.

But the molasses flood was more than an isolated event. It 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.