Dark Tide by Stephen Puleo details the molasses flood that devastated the Commercial Street area in Boston on January 15, 1919. A fifty-foot tall steel tank owned by United States Industrial Alcohol Company (USIA) collapsed and unleashed 2.3 million gallons of molasses on the congested waterfront district in a fifteen-foot-high wave moving as fast as thirty-five miles per hour. Incredible structural damage resulted as well as over one hundred injuries and a score of deaths. I had never heard of this tragedy until I ran across this book as an Amazon.com recommendation. It seems odd to me that this event is not more widely known due to its unusual nature. Puleo explains that it was considered an "isolated event not connected with larger trends in American history" (x). The author sets out to make these connections throughout his book. The story of January 15, 1919 and its aftermath is interwoven with the most important headlines of the day.
Puleo expertly connects the molasses flood to the Great War (the USIA was distilling molasses for industrial alcohol used in munitions production), anarchism and the Red Scare (the tank was built in a southern Italian district), Prohibition, and the pro-Big Business administrations of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. The author also demonstrates, mostly through the deposition of the USIA assistant treasurer responsible for the tank's construction, the unbelievably rushed and careless manner in which the tank was built. It leaked profusely from the outset. Workers near the tank, even the children in the community, noticed the leaks but the company responded only by occasionally re-caulking the plates and rivets and painting the tank molasses color to make the leaks less noticeable.
A moving account of the human suffering resulting from the bursting tank follows as well as a detailed look at the long trial and the verdicts and damages awarded. The author shows a lot of respect for Judge Ogden and, unfortunately, gives away the verdict in a caption under his photo before the section on the trial. The defense's argument was that the tank was exploded by anarchists (the trial coincided with incidents of anarchist violence as well as the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti). Puleo ends with the direct short-term and long-term effects of the Boston molasses flood. His view that the verdict marked a change in America's attitude towards Big Business; a trend that led to the election of Franklin Roosevelt, seemed a stretch, but the other more local ramifications were important and makes one wonder further why this tragedy is not more well-known. A list of the deceased, biographical essay, and index are included as well as a few photos (mostly taken on the scene of the flood's destructive wake).
My biggest criticism is that Puleo often describes what is going on in the minds of the people involved which, for a historical book, is always a dicey thing to do. He does not follow-up on Isaac Gonzales. He is introduced right at the beginning as the "general man" of the Boston tank that was haunted by fear that the leaking tank would explode. He finally had to leave his job and move to Ohio. He apparently gave testimony at the trial, but Puleo offers no excerpts from it, nor is there any word on Gonzales' reaction when finding out his greatest fear became reality. Gonzales was not listed among those on which Puleo followed-up (no fault of the author's if no information was available) but it would have been nice to read a post-flood statement from Gonzales and have the book go full circle. Despite these minor complaints, Dark Tide is a clearly written, thorough account of a little known tragedy that has more connection to the historical fabric of the country than a lot of tragedies that have gone on into legend.
