The Sticky Wave

"The Sticky Wave – The day a wall of syrup flattened a Boston neighborhood" recounts one of the strangest and most horrific disasters in American history. On January 15, 1919, a massive storage tank in Boston's North End burst, releasing 2.3 million gallons of molasses. The resulting wave was 25 feet high, moved at 35 miles per hour, and possessed enough force to smash buildings, snap steel girders, and drown 21 people in viscous goo. Historian Caleb Frost investigates the negligence behind the tank's construction—it was painted brown to hide the leaks—and the physics of non-Newtonian fluids that made the molasses behave like a solid tsunami in the winter cold. The book details the rescue efforts, where medics had to wipe syrup from the mouths of victims so they could breathe. "The Sticky Wave" moves beyond the "funny" premise to reveal a gritty story of corporate greed, anarchist paranoia (the company initially blamed a bomb), and the suffering of the immigrant working class. It is a sticky, dark chapter of industrial history that changed engineering regulations forever.