The Great Boston Molasses Flood (1919) w/ Cara Giaimo

It’s January 16th. This day in 1919, the North End neighborhood of Boston is digging out from under 2.3 million gallons of molasses, which flooded city streets after a storage tank burst.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by science and history writer Cara Giaimo to discuss how the flood has been reduced to a quirky tidbit of history, when in fact it should be taken serious as an industrial disaster that could have been prevented.

Cara wrote about the flood for Atlas Obscura in 2019 and also did a great Twitter thread touring the North End and looking for clues of the disaster.

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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Julie Shapiro and Audrey Mardavich, Executive Producers at Radiotopia