The Boston Molasses Flood

Welcome to Did You Know a set of videos where we talk about interesting tidbits of state history? The Boston molasses flood. The name on the surface seems almost absurd, just like the idea of that proverbially slow liquid moving over 35 miles per hour, The image would be comical if the death and destruction of the event weren't all too real or avoidable.

Molasses was a staple of the Massachusetts economy, going back to its early colonial days. Over the centuries, it was mostly distilled into rum, but by 1900 production had largely shifted to distilling it into industrial alcohol products or colored dyes. But by the turn of the 20th century, it was essential to the production of military explosives. As the United States prepared to enter World War One.

The demand for industrial alcohol skyrocketed, and one major company, United States Industrial Alcohol or USAA, saw an opportunity for profit at any cost. In November 1915, the U.S.A. began work on its 3 million gallon tank. They wanted their own source of raw molasses to supply the refineries in Cambridge. Rather than contort their supply chain by relying on others.

The construction of the tank was overseen by UCI's local manager, Arthur P Gelb. Joe was a middle manager in the company, experienced in clerical work, but with no engineering experience. He was put under pressure by his superiors to have the tank completed by the final day of 1915, and he succeeded in this by cutting nearly every corner possible.

Inspections of materials were not arranged. Engineering experts were not consulted, and the tank would not even be filled up with water to test it, as there was simply no time before the shipment of molasses arrived from Cuba on December 31st, 1915. The tank, which was unfinished, untested and later proven unsafe, was filled with its first load of 1.3 million gallons of molasses.

Almost immediately after the construction was complete, the cracks quite literally began to show. Molasses would leak from a improperly sealed seams on the sides with such regularity that the neighborhood children would bring small cans and buckets to collect the drippings and bring them home as a treat. It is at this point, I should mention that this Titanic tank was situated extremely close to the densely packed neighborhood of the North End.

The north end of 1915 was a bustling hub of immigrants, along with their assorted shops and businesses. 80% of the district was Italian, mostly from the poorer southern regions and Sicily. Working in the Boston areas, industrial districts. This was a recent group of immigrants driven to leave their homeland over the previous three decades to seek better economic prospects.

These new Italian immigrants, by and large, did not pursue American citizenship, and those that did faced steep legal hurdles, incredibly strict quotas and institutionalized discrimination. The Italian community responded by becoming increasingly close knit and distrustful of those on the outside. Further exacerbating the situation were the Italian anarchists whose dramatic and destructive actions encouraged reactionary persecution. This combination of factors led to only 25% of the Italians living in Boston being American citizens in 1919.

The tank was placed in the heart of their district next door to residential buildings without care for their opinion or safety. Over the next two years of operation, the tank showed consistent signs of not being up to any reasonable set of standards. Many concerns about the tanks integrity were raised by the on site manager of the tank, Eiza Gonzalez.

These warnings were repeatedly ignored and the demand for specialized alcohol based products increased with the United States entry into World War One. U.S. profits doubled in response to the demand, and there was no time for complaints that would slow down production. The manager JL respond to all of Gonzalez's calls for concern by painting the tank a molasses brown color just to disguise how leaky and unsound it was.

One month later, in September 1918, Gonzales resigned from his position. Out of frustration and fear, given what was to happen in four months, that decision may have saved his life. On January 12th, 1919, 1.3 million gallons of molasses were pumped into the tank from a tanker ship in the harbor. This filled the tank to near capacity with 2.3 million gallons being held inside.

This amount of molasses weighed £26 million and was near 50 feet tall in the tank. The danger became not merely the construction or the weight, but the two types of molasses mixing hot and cold molasses when added together, ferment and create gas. And this extra pressure from the gas in the tank would be the proverbial final straw. Three days later, the three year old dam would break and the north end would flood.

On January 15th, at 1245 in the afternoon, the side of the tank ruptured with explosive force, spilling the £26 million of molasses down Commercial Street. The rivets holding the tank together shot in all directions with a sound like bullets firing. The results in the immediate vicinity were similar to a tidal wave. Buildings were inundated and the people who were unlucky enough to be near the tank were killed or smothered immediately by the wave.

The initial wave was 15 feet high and ripped through storefronts, warehouses and the local firehouse. Debris was carried along in the wave, making it more lethal. In a large section of the tank was sheared off by the rupture. This section collapsed the support pillars of the elevated railway that ran between North Station and South Station. It was only thanks to the quick thinking of one of the car operators, Royal Albert Liman, that the cars coming from the other direction were stopped before they could fall into the rapidly expanding molasses pit.

Rescue efforts began almost immediately, beginning less than 5 minutes after the flood. 116 Navy cadets from the USS Nantucket were closest to the disaster and were the first to respond, desperately trying to extract the wounded from the morass. They were quickly joined by firemen, police and the Red Cross. As the number of injured became apparent, a temporary relief center was swiftly established at nearby Haymarket so that the injured could be triaged without moving them too far.

The rescue workers worked through the night searching for survivors, and after that, the deceased. 11 people were known to be dead by midnight. That number rose over the following days and months as bodies were found and the injured succumbed to their wounds. The final toll was 21 dead and 150 injured. Cleaning the streets of debris and making the north end livable again was another monumental task made more difficult by the hardening molasses.

Several blocks of the North End were covered in 2 to 3 feet of molasses that still contained the assorted debris of the buildings it had flattened the way that seeped into every basement and under every floor. To remove the molasses took weeks of pumping seawater into the streets and carving up chunks to be dumped into the harbor. Within two days, Boston Harbor was brown from molasses as over 300 workers dug into the sticky morass.

But as the city began to recover from the shock, questions began to be asked How could such a thing have happened? The initial inquest into the flood was released a month afterwards and laid the blame squarely at USAA and the faulty construction of the tank. The U.S. rejected this, claiming that anarchists with explosives were the responsible party. The grand jury called in the first inquest declined to indict any employees of USAA on manslaughter charges, citing insufficient evidence.

However, the families of those who lost loved ones were injured, filed 119 claims and combined them into the largest class action lawsuit in Massachusetts history. Up to that point, the case would effectively be decided by the ruling of Judge Hugh W Ogden, who would determine if USAA was at fault. As the trial proceeded, it soon became apparent to all involved just how rushed and faulty the construction of the tank had been.

The steel used to construct the tank had been 10% thinner than ordered and was a major factor in why the rupture was so sudden and violent. The consistent leaking from the sides since the beginning and the company's attempts to hide the extent of the leakage with paint were all documented thoroughly. The testimony of Arthur Gell, the manager who oversaw the construction of the tank, was the most condemning throughout the entire process.

He showed an almost unbuilt, livable amount of negligence. There had been no expert or even qualified oversight on the quality of the steel, the construction of the tank, or even the plans to build it. And it had all been for the sake of cutting costs and saving time. U.S. strategy remained the same in that they blamed anarchists for the sudden violent rupture.

Despite lacking any physical evidence to support this theory, relying heavily on anti-Italian bias. On April 28th, 1925, after 3000 witness testimonies and over six years after the flood, Judge Oden found the United States industrial alcohol company Responsible for the flawed construction of the tank. That their lack of quality checks were negligent and that this tragedy could have very easily been avoided.

There were many long term consequences of the molasses flood, but most were subtle happening over a period of years. The most influential are perhaps the engineering certification laws that were enacted nationwide requiring professional oversight and construction with quality checks at multiple stages. These new laws were first passed in Massachusetts, but quickly spread across the United States, forcing a level of accountability that had not previously existed.

The Italian community experienced some of the most personal consequences of the molasses flood as the incident took place right in the heart of their neighborhood. The small numbers of Italian-American voters and their persecution outside their communities left them of political nonentity in the civil systems that govern their lives. As a consequence of this, they did not have a voice in Boston politics, and their concerns could be and would be safely ignored by the civil authorities.

The reason why USAA was able to put their tanks so close to their residential district was because of this lack of advocacy on their behalf. The molasses flood became a major impetus for change in the Italian-American community, showing the need to claim and establish their voice in politics. Over the next 20 years, the number of Italian-American voters tripled in Boston, and after World War Two, they would become a major force in Massachusetts politics.

The molasses flood was a disaster for the North End and its community that destroyed lives and livelihoods. But what is perhaps most tragic is how preventable it was. If at any point experts had been called in or if the equipment had been properly tested or if any warning of the tanks fans were heated, lives would have been spared.

But sadly, none of those things happened. I want to thank Steven Pouliot and his book Dark Tide, for the research into these events as it brought out and for a time and place in Boston's history that is often overlooked. Thank you for joining us today. If you'd like to learn more about the molasses flood and Boston history, check out these resources.

Thank you for watching.