Dark Tide, Old Edition/Out of Print: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 Paperback – September 16, 2004

great book about little known part of history

Well written and fascinating.

Interesting piece of local history. Glad book was available.

Well done and well researched study of an ugly historical incident.

Just telling the story of the Great Molasses Flood and its aftermath would've resulted in a much shorter book, so the author does what tellers of other significant events in American history have done - expand the book in attempt to make the disaster a microcosm of forces and influences affecting the country at the time. It takes in the anarchist movement, labor unrest, industry excesses, anti-Italian prejudice and various other factors in an indictment of society as a whole.It's a worthwhile read, even if the author's recipe for a Great American Historical Work turns into an overly complex sticky soup at times.

We learned tidbits about the "molassacre" from a bus tour guide on our trip to Boston in 2018. He off-handedly recommend this book so I ordered it when we got home. What a fascinating story!I really enjoyed this book. It covers so much, from the history of the molasses trade (including how pivotal it was to slavery in the US), to presidential campaigns of that time, our involvement in WWI, the labor tensions and "Big Business" climate and the anarchist activity (including the trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti). I learned a ton and developed a wider context for the period of time between about 1915 and 1930. It even had some interesting overlap with what I had read recently in the Jungle.There were extensive accounts of personal histories and very detailed backgrounds of the political, geographical and cultural situation of that time, including some fun facts (for example, that Harding was the first US president to arrive at his inauguration in an automobile instead of horse-drawn carriage, and what that signified for the automotive industry). I was fascinated with this background information and thought the author did a phenomenal job with setting the stage and tying together so many different aspects of the story.Puleo is a great writer and I was easily engrossed in the many aspects relating to this event. His witty, compelling and colorful writing turned dry facts into a very engaging, personal narrative about an event that I had never heard of before our trip and demonstrated connections between it and so many other events and perspectives from that time and beyond.I think my favorite part of the book was Part 3, in which the author recounts the details of the court case against the US Industrial Alcohol Company. Using unearthed official court records, he was able to quote extensively from the leading lawyers, witnesses and the auditor of the case, Hugh W. Ogden. It was more interesting than (and often as dramatic as) a Law and Order episode.The author goes into great detail in a "bibliographic essay" in the back of the book about his sources and the dozens of books one could read for more information. His research is very impressive and I really appreciated the effort he took to show where he got his sources and how he applied them.This is a fine example of taking one event and telling its story in such a way that educates the reader on that event plus all kinds of peripheral subjects, fostering an interest in and excitement for learning itself. This book has prompted interest for me in several different areas for further reading and I'm grateful for the author's extremely well-done work!

The Boston Molasses Flood is my favorite quirky historical moment in Boston, and this book showed me how much I didn't know about the tragedy. Puleo is a powerful historian, weaving together a wide context of political movements, changing views of big business, and military technologies into a hammock in which to rest this one event of 1919. He draws from contemporary newspaper accounts, personal correspondence, and thousands of pages of trial transcripts to present well-documented portraits of the major players, and while he makes a number of value judgments along the way about right and wrong, he backs up his opinions with clear facts and fair reasoning. Puleo's background as a journalist also contributes to the success of this work, as he shares slices of life (with details down to the smells and sounds) that bring his characters to life.The book follows a three-act structure. First, Puleo describes the events leading to the molasses flood, with a description of the importance of molasses to the development of the United States, a view of the daily lives of those who would most directly be victimized, and an exploration of the anarchist movement and xenophobia that bubbled like two million gallons of fermenting molasses in a tank. In the second act, Puleo goes step by step through the events of the tragedy, quoting eyewitnesses and compassionately recording the last moments of men, women, and children as they were crushed or drowned by the brown sludge. In the third act, Puleo delves deeply into the civil suit that resulted from this tragedy, using extensive quotes directly from the trial transcripts. The structure is completely effective and a perfect way to show readers the importance of what happened on one January day in 1919.The only real complaint I have with the book is likely the fault of the editors. This book has a fair number of photographs, from city scenes while the molasses tank was still standing, to shots of the destruction during the flood, to a portrait of the man hearing the civil suit. This last portrait, though, has a caption that I do not believe Puleo would have written, as it unnecessarily reveals the outcome of the case. Puleo's words carefully draw out the dramatic tension for dozens of pages, surely intending to keep the reader guessing as to which way the judgment will go, but because of this stupid caption at the beginning of the third act, Puleo's careful efforts are for naught. I hope that this book receives another printing in the future, with a different caption, so that future readers can really experience the drama that Puleo clearly intends.

A fascinating and well written story, which skilfully combines an intriguing human story with a social history of the time (America in WW1) I enjoyed both aspects of the book so much that I bought this copy for my nephew who is a history teacher. My Italian friend has read it in English, and equally found it fascinating,

Interesting book about an event I knew nothing about until recently

A good read on a(nother) disaster waiting to happen.

great read, look how they blamed the Anarchists, just like today, blame everyone who may have a different idea