Many of those laws exist as a result of the molasses flood.
SCIENTISTS HAVE BEEN STUDYING THIS DISASTER FOR YEARS
It’s been one hundred years since the molasses disaster. Since then, scientists have continued to investigate exactly why the tank collapsed when it did. They all agree the tank was poorly built, and that USIA was at fault.
But there’s another reason why this tank was dangerous, and that’s because of how molasses behaves when it’s put inside a closed space. Molasses isn’t like water and many other liquids that just sit in a tank. Molasses is alive with germs. These germs make the molasses bubble up. There’s a scientific word for this: fermentation. Many people reported hearing strange gurgling noises coming from inside the tank when it was full. Employees who worked for the company knew that these noises meant that the molasses was fermenting. They knew that this could be dangerous, that the gases caused by fermentation can build up — and cause explosions. Fermentation put more strain on the poorly built tank and made a disaster even more likely. And yes, USIA should have known this, too.
MOLASSES USED TO BE MORE COMMON THAN REGULAR SUGAR
Molasses comes from the same plant that sugar comes from — sugarcane. Sugar is made through a complicated process of boiling sugarcane juice. Molasses is what’s left over after making sugar.
Today, you could live your whole life and never taste molasses. Mostly it’s used to make old-fashioned recipes, like gingerbread and baked beans. (I have a dusty jar of molasses in the back of my kitchen cabinet that I haven’t opened in years.)
But until the later 1800s, Americans used molasses by the gallon. Why? Because sugar was so expensive that most Americans only used it for very special occasions, like baking a birthday cake or sweetening the tea of an honored guest. Molasses was used to sweeten everything else.
But as sugar became cheaper, molasses was used less and less frequently in foods. And by the time the molasses tank was built, almost all the molasses brought to America was being used to make industrial alcohol, mostly for explosives and bombs being used on World War I battlefields.
IN 1919, AMERICA WAS CHANGING — FAST
At the time of the molasses flood, America was in the middle of a transformation. New inventions and technology were changing how people lived, worked, and traveled. New medicines and vaccines meant that people were living longer. More and more people were zooming around in motorcars; horses would soon mostly disappear from the streets of big cities and towns. Lightbulbs replaced candles and gas lamps, and made homes and streets brighter. There were new ways to have fun, like going to the movies and listening to the radio.
And there were more important changes happening, too, especially for women. For years, women had been fighting for equal rights — to be allowed to work in the same kinds of jobs as men, to open bank accounts, and, perhaps most important, to vote. In 1919 (later in the same year as the flood), they would finally win the right to vote in elections.
WORLD WAR I WAS THE DEADLIEST WAR THE WORLD HAD EVER KNOWN
Back then, World War I was called the Great War. It began in 1914. The causes of the war are complex; even today historians don’t exactly agree why this long and bloody war started. But most historians put the blame on Germany’s leaders, who wanted Germany to be more powerful. Whatever the cause, war broke out in July of 1914, with Germany and some other countries on one side battling the “Allied” forces of France, England, and Russia.
The biggest battles were in the forests and fields of France and Belgium.
Soon, tens of thousands of soldiers were dying every day in vicious battles. Soldiers used new kinds of weapons, including machine guns, more powerful cannons and bombs, and poison gas. Soldiers fought in trenches — long pits that protected them from some bullets, but also trapped them. Some soldiers not only had to fight in these muddy, rat-filled trenches. They had to live in them, for weeks or even months.
Most Americans wanted to stay out of this war. But in 1917, America joined forces with France, England, and Russia in the fight to defeat Germany. Over the next few months, nearly four million young American soldiers would fight in the war. More than 115,000 died and many more returned home with terrible wounds — legs and arms lost to bombs and bullets, lungs scarred by gas, dreams haunted by gruesome memories.
Worldwide, nearly forty million people died in World War I. That includes soldiers in battle and regular people who died from war-related injuries and diseases that spread during the war.
The war finally ended on November 11, 1918, which became known as “Armistice Day.” In America, we still celebrate that day as Veterans Day.
World War I was supposed to be “the war to end all wars.” But tragically, that was not true. Just twenty years later, Germany’s leader, Adolf Hitler, started World War II and the Holocaust. That war was even more deadly. More than 73 million people around the world were killed.
THE SPANISH INFLUENZA SICKENED ONE-THIRD OF ALL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD
Scientists do not agree on exactly where and when the first cases of the Spanish influenza began. But the sickness did not begin in Spain. It was given that name because the king of Spain was one of the first famous people to die of the illness, in May of 1918.
Back then, few people imagined that this illness would soon spread across the world. But doctors were concerned. Because from the start, they understood that it was not an ordinary flu.
Many types of the flu are most dangerous for people who are very young, very old, or already weakened by another kind of illness. But the Spanish flu killed even the strongest young men (like Papa). The illness began with a headache and fever, and then often turned to deadly pneumonia that destroyed the lungs.
The first major US outbreak of Spanish influenza began outside Boston, on an army base. It quickly spread across the city — and the country.
Experts estimate that one-third of people in the world became infected with the flu; about fifty million died, including approximately 675,000 in the United States.
The molasses flood was such a sad story. But I wanted to end this book with some sweetness — a recipe for gingerbread cake. This is a delicious treat made with molasses. Kids like Carmen would have eaten gingerbread back in 1919. My four kids love it — and I think you might, too.
Ingredients
Butter or oil and flour for dusting the cake pan
½ cup unsalted butter
½ cup light brown sugar
1 cup molasses
1 large egg
2½ cups all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup boiling water*
Directions
Ask an adult to help you preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Prepare a 9x9-inch cake pan: Grease the inside with butter or oil. Sprinkle on some flour. Tilt the pan so the flour sticks to the grease. Shake out any extra flour.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until light and creamy.
Add the molasses and egg and mix until smooth.
Add the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves and mix until smooth.
Ask an adult to help you carefully add the boiling water and mix until smooth.
Pour the batter into your prepared pan.
Ask an adult to help you put the pan in the oven. Bake 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out without any crumbs on it.
Ask an adult to help you take the cake out of the oven. Allow the cake to cool before cutting it into squares.
Some books you can read about the molasses flood and that time in history:
The Great Molasses Flood, by Deborah Kops, Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge, 2012
Joshua’s Song, by Joan Hiatt Harlow, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2001
Other I Survived books relating to this topic and time:
I Survive
d True Stories: Five Epic Disasters includes the true story of a boy who survived the Boston molasses flood.
I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916 takes place in New Jersey, a few years before the Boston molasses flood.
I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912 happens seven years before the molasses flood, and also features Italian immigrants.
“A Deadly Tsunami of Molasses in Boston’s North End,” by Julia Press, NPR, January 15, 2019
“Boston, Massachusetts,” American Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919: A Digital Encyclopedia, by University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine and Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library
Dark Tide, by Stephen Puleo, Boston: Beacon Press, 2003
“How the Boston Molasses Flood Ushered in the Era of Modern Regulation,” by Jared Keller, Pacific Standard, January 7, 2019
The Boston Italians, by Stephen Puleo, Boston: Beacon Press, 2007
The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in Human History, by John M. Barry, New York: Penguin Group, 2004
The Long Way Home, by David Laskin, New York: HarperCollins, 2010
“The Life of American Workers,” Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics, February 2016
“The Science of the Great Molasses Flood,” by Ferris Jabr, Scientific American, August 1, 2013
Eleven-year-old Paul Colbert was running for his life.
It was D-Day, one of the bloodiest days of World War II. More than 150,000 soldiers from America, England, and Canada were invading France.
They had sailed across the sea on seven thousand ships, creeping through the dark of night.
Their mission: to free France from the brutal grip of Nazi Germany. It was time to crush the Nazis, and end the war.
In the minutes before the ships arrived, Paul was crouched on a cliff above the beach. He was trying to escape before the battle began. But now warplanes were zooming through the sky. And suddenly there was a shattering blast.
Kaboom!
Paul looked up in horror and saw that a plane was now in flames. And it was in a fiery death spiral, heading right for him.
Paul ran wildly as the burning plane fell from the sky. The air filled with the gagging stench of burning metal and melting rubber. The engine screamed and moaned. It sounded like a giant beast bellowing in pain.
No matter where Paul went, the dying plane seemed to be following him, like it wanted Paul to die, too.
And then, smack! Something hit Paul on the head. His skull seemed to explode in pain. Paul fell to the ground as the burning wreckage came crashing down.
For four long years, Paul had been praying for this day — for the war to end, for France to be finally free from the Nazis.
But now, it seemed, this day would be his last.
THE DESTRUCTION OF POMPEII, AD 79
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1776
THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, 1863
THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE, 1871
THE CHILDREN’S BLIZZARD, 1888
THE SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE, 1906
THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC, 1912
THE SHARK ATTACKS OF 1916
THE HINDENBURG DISASTER, 1937
THE BOMBING OF PEARL HARBOR, 1941
THE NAZI INVASION, 1944
THE BATTLE OF D-DAY, 1944
THE ATTACK OF THE GRIZZLIES, 1967
THE ERUPTION OF MOUNT ST. HELENS, 1980
THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
HURRICANE KATRINA, 2005
THE JAPANESE TSUNAMI, 2011
THE JOPLIN TORNADO, 2011
Text copyright © 2019 by Dreyfuss Tarshis Media Inc.
Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Scholastic Inc.
Photos ©: Boston Post: FLHC 4/Alamy Stock Image; ambulance after flood: Boston Globe/Getty Images; immigrants: FPG/Getty Images; wedding: courtesy of the author; fallen tank, steel worker, firemen, fallen tracks: Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection; sugar cane: Engdao Wichitpunya/Dreamstime; molasses candy: Apic/Getty Images; men and car: Kirn Vintage Stock/Getty Images; suffragettes: GL Archive/Alamy Stock Image; WWI trench: The Print Collector/Alamy Stock Image; influenza outbreak: PhotoQuest/Getty images.
Special thanks to Stephen Puleo
This book is being published simultaneously in hardcover by Scholastic Press.
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First printing 2019
Cover art by Colin Anderson
Cover design by Katie Fitch
e-ISBN 978-1-338-31743-5
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* Ask for an adult’s help boiling the water.
I Survived the Great Molasses Flood, 1919 Page 5