Lost in a deadly flood, and stirred by every page

Puleo's 'Dark Tide,' about molasses disaster of 1919, is focus of community read in Medford

Sailors search through rubble in Boston's North End following the Great Molasses Flood in 1919, in an image from the book "Dark Tide" by Stephen Puleo.

On Jan. 15, 1919, a 50-foot-high tank full of molasses collapsed into Boston's North End, sending 2.3 million gallons of the heavy, sticky substance into the crowded neighborhood, killing 21 people and injuring 150.

To mark this year's 90th anniversary of the tragedy, Medford officials are making the Great Molasses Flood the focus of the city's first "community read'' program, hoping Stephen Puleo's book about poor Italian immigrants falling victim to corporate negligence brings strangers together and spurs interest in the Medford Public Library.

Several other communities are featuring Puleo's book, "Dark Tide," for reading programs this year. Puleo lectured at the Boston Public Library on Jan. 14 as a 90th anniversary commemoration. Beverly concluded its two-month community read with Puleo leading a tour of the North End on March 15. And Stoughton kicked off its fifth Stoughton Reads Together program on March 2 with an exhibit of photos from the molasses flood.

In Medford, the community read kickoff party this month drew about 40 people to discuss "Dark Tide," which chronicles the buildup to the flood and its aftermath. The party raised $1,000 for the library.

"When you hear about the flood, it sounds kind of surreal, but the book goes into great detail," said Mary Sbuttoni, a member of the library steering committee.

Puleo said Italian immigrants made up 97 percent of the North End's population in the late 1910s, and since few of them could vote and no community organizations existed, the residents had no political power to oppose the construction of the massive molasses tank on Commercial Street near the waterfront.

The molasses was used for rum and to create alcohol for explosives during World War I.

When the tank collapsed, the molasses tidal wave - reported to be as high as 15 feet - destroyed much in its path, including an elevated railroad trestle and a firehouse that was knocked off its foundation.

Many of the people who died drowned because they couldn't stay afloat in the heavy liquid. Months passed before all the hardened molasses was removed with workers eventually using seawater to clean the streets.

The class-action lawsuit following the flood said the disaster was caused by poor tank construction, leading to its owner, the US Industrial Alcohol Co., having to hand out awards to 119 victims - although the company maintained the tank failure was caused by Italian anarchists.

Puleo said building regulations nationwide were tightened as a result of the flood, including requiring engineers to certify structural plans.

"This tank did not even require a building permit because it wasn't considered a building. It was considered a receptacle," Puleo said.

Barbara Kerr, assistant director of the Medford library, said the local community read committee picked "Dark Tide" because of Medford's large number of residents of Italian descent and their ties to the North End; because the book is a local nonfiction work suitable for a variety of programming; and because people seem to like disaster stories.

The library sponsored a lecture on the history of the North End on March 12 and has planned other events, including a movie about Italian immigration on March 26, a discussion about strange Boston history on April 7, two tours of the North End on March 28 and April 18, and a lecture with Puleo on April 27. The library has also scheduled five "Dark Tide" discussions.

"It is a community-building exercise," Kerr said. "March is a really long and boring month, and you need something to do."

The community read program also includes a children's novel, "Joshua's Song," by Medford native Joan Hiatt Harlow, a fiction story set against the events of the Great Molasses Flood.

The Tufts University Neighborhood Service Fund provided 180 copies of "Joshua's Song" to Medford schools in hopes of bringing fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders into the discussion.

Harlow said she went to school near the North End and always wondered about the neighborhood's sweet aroma.

"I think you can still smell it actually," she said, adding that when she learned about the molasses flood she decided it would make a solid backdrop for her story of a newspaper boy growing up in Boston.

The Medford library bought 100 copies of "Dark Tide" for community read, thanks to donations from the Medford Arts Council, the Friends of the Medford Public Library, and the Holliston Public Library, which featured the book last year.

Kerr said the Medford library has never run out of copies of the book, although that might not be the case once the community read gets rolling.

"The discussion is the part I'm looking forward to the most because when you read a book you don't always get a chance to discuss it," she said.

Pat Basler, director of the Stoughton Public Library, said community reads inspires strangers to talk with one another.

The first year Stoughton read together, people would stop library staff on the street asking when the next community read would take place, she said.

Brad Kane can be reached at brad.j.kane@gmail.com.