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History

Boston Tea Party: 250 years ago

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Boston Tea Party: 250 years ago 12/16/1773

So, today’s the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. I had no clue why it was today, and other than the little bit I learned in fourth grade, I never really learned much about it at all.

I mean, we all know about ‘no taxation without representation’ and how that led to a boycott and eventually a property destroying protest of what would be today millions of dollars of tea.

So that boycott obviously meant no British tea was being brewed by colonists. I hadn’t realized that the colonists were still getting tea from the Dutch, nor did I know exactly what the boycott of British tea meant…

The British East India Company was a huge business internationally. And during the US boycott, they continued to import tea and stored it in warehouses in the Britain. Tea is a perishable product, and it was at risk of going bad and causing a huge loss to the Company. They were relieved when Parliament finally relented in 1768 and repealed all of the acts the colonists had been protesting.
Except for the Tea Act.  The three pence per pound tax stayed on tea. So colonists stayed not buying it. By 1773, the East India Company had 17 million pounds of tea worth over 2 million pounds in London. As a perishable product, its value was dropping every day.

So, the Company was facing rising dept. They could not get a loan, so they suspended dividends to stockholders. Realizing if the Easy India Company failed, it would take the banks with them, Parliament finally stepped in. Yes, this was one of the very first companies deemed ‘too big to fail’. Parliament gave them money, and the Company sent seven ships to the Colonies laden with stale tea and other supplies.

This tea was still taxed.

Anger erupted through the colonies, partially because tea smugglers fed the flames of gossip. The colonists waited as the first four ships were to land in Boston. When a ship made port, according to law, all the cargo had to be offloaded 20 days after inspection, or it was confiscated and auctioned. That was December 17. The first ship arrived, and was able to unload all their cargo except the tea. Twenty five volunteers stayed and made sure of that. The next two ships were treated the same, while the fourth ship lost its cargo at sea.

On December 16th,  the largest town meeting in the area’s history demanded that the governor send the ship back to London with the tea untouched. As noted above, if the ship wasn’t unloaded the contents would be confiscated and auctioned. The govenor’s sons who stood to profit off the auction, urged him not to agree to send the ship back.

A gang of 100 men and adolescents (the youngest is said to have been 13) took over all three ships. 340 chests of tea were pulled on board, opened and dumped. Protestors made sure not only that all the tea sank, raking it or holding it under the water to make sure it was gone. The men also policed themselves, emptying pockets and boots to make sure no useable tea was left or smuggled off the ships. By that evening, it was over. The ships returned safely to England, minus what would be about $1,000,000 worth in today’s money of tea.

History

Viva Sicilia, Viva San Giuseppe!

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Did you ever call someone Italian and have them respond, ‘no, I’m Sicilian?’

You probably just laughed, it’s all the same country, right? And if you’ve said it, you may not even know why you did.

Around the time of the American Civil War, Italy was being united. Unlike America, Italy wasn’t a group of colonies with a common language and culture who came together voluntarily to form a country. Italy was a set of kingdoms and city states, all with their own cultures and languages.

Sicily in the early 1800’s, when Austen and Shelly were writing their novels, was intellectually and civically advanced. Sicilians had an established pension system, steamships, iron and steel plants, low taxes, high arts, low infant mortality rates, a school for the deaf, botanical gardens, glass recycling programs, and a nearly universal ownership of a small patch of land (enough to grow food)- it was equal to any of the other countries in Europe.

Then in 1860, Garibaldi (of the English cookie fame) ‘liberated’ Sicily. Who was he liberating the Sicilians from? Well, the Sicilians. And who was one country who backed him? Everyone’s favorite colonizer, England! Well, that explains why the English and not the Sicilians have a cookie named after him.

The British wanted sulphur, which Southern Italy had, and wanted to open the Suez canal, and sent warships to help Garibaldi take the Kingdom (which wasn’t just the island, but stretched at that point to Naples (have you ever heard a person say ‘I am not Italian, I am Neapolitan?’) ) The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which had only been united since 1816, being two separate kingdoms before that, ceased to exist in 1861.

In various cities in Sicily, revolts were squashed. After the mostly unarmed farmer rebellions were put down, with the resultant massacres, the ‘leaders of the revolt’ were put on trial. Given 30 minutes to prepare a defense, they were then either executed or given life sentences. Their property was stolen, their women raped, their children told they were dirty barbarians.

One of the first things that was done to the newly ‘liberated’ Sicily, was the seizure of nearly all religious property. Most of the schools were run by religious orders, and thus for nearly 30 years, there was no place for children in the South to be educated. Twenty seven years passed before the liberators of Sicily gave their children schools.

One hundred and fifty four years after the liberation of Sicily, Italy apologized for the mistreatment of the South which threw it into ignorance and depression.

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was only under self rule from 1816-1861. That’s 45 years.

Oh, and Italians don’t use spoons to twirl their pasta. Sicilians do. Remember that the next time someone laughs at spoon use. So, use a spoon to twirl your pasta, eat some pastries, and remember that Sicily has not been under it’s own rule since 1861.

Viva Sicilia, Viva San Giuseppe!

Folklore, History, Safety

Slower than Molasses in January: The Great Molasses Flood of 1919

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Many of us remember being told we were slower than molasses in January when we were dragging our feet and our parents wanted to go somewhere. It was up there to poetically describe terribly slow things like watched pots and paint drying and grass growing.

 

So it may come as a surprise that molasses in January actually travels at about 35 miles per hour and with enough force to knock houses off their foundations and trains off their tracks.

At least, one instance of molasses in January in Boston did.

One hundred years ago, around lunchtime on January 15th, 1919, a 50-foot-high steel tank  ruptured in Boston’s North End, spilling 2.3 million gallons of molasses. Now, while visions of tanks spilling sweet goodness all over may be the stuff of dreams, the reality is the stuff of nightmares. Twenty one people were killed and 150 people were injured. Litigation would last for years.

 

It had been an abnormally warm winter day. The molasses in the tank had probably been fermenting for months, as people had reported seeing leaks. The tank was painted brown to hide the leaks, but children of the heavily populated area would go to the tank with pails to collect the molasses. The tank had also just been topped off a few days before with warm molasses that had traveled from the Gulf Coast, and the warm day contributed to the fermentation. The rivets began to shoot out of the tank, making people report hearing machine gun fire, and the molasses began to twist and break off the steel plates as it escaped.

Patrolman Frank McManus used a call box to report a wave of molasses down Commercial Street.  He asked for all available rescue vehicles and personnel to be sent. The molasses formed a 40 foot wave with its 14,000 tons. For nearly 100 yards around the tank, the spill was chest deep. It knocked the firehouse off its foundation and shook the elevated train nearly off its tracks.

Within seconds, people within two city blocks of the tank had been drowned. Many survivors had broken backs and skulls from the force. Giuseppe Iantosca was keeping an eye on his ten year old son through his second story window when the molasses hit. He watched his son’s red sweater vanish into the molasses. It would be hours before the boy’s broken body would be recovered. Eighteen of the 21 victims were Italian or Irish immigrants.

Molasses, as you may guess, doesn’t act like water. It’s a non-Newtonian fluid, which means it wants to remain stable and static until a force is applied. Then it can react pretty violently. Think toothpaste in a tube or ketchup in a squeeze bottle. Prior to being squeezed, they are pretty stable. The force of gravity and the heat made the molasses very unstable. After it stopped being affected by the force, the molasses simply went back to being stable, trapping people and animals in its sticky grip. And unlike water, regular motions won’t work. Every time you move in a non-Newtonian fluid, it moves with you, making sure you make no progress. It’s why we see insects trapped in amber, or prehistoric animals in tar pits. Only this was molasses just a century ago in one of the United States’ largest cities trapping people and dogs and horses.

People stuck in deep molasses would describe how difficult it was to breathe, how the pressure of the molasses on their chests forced them to gasp for their lives. Doctors and nurses would later document how hard it was to clean molasses out of the tracheas of survivors. And then the temperature began to drop, causing the molasses to become stable again, trapping people and animals and buildings. Twenty five horses ended up dying.

Sailors on leave rushed to the scene to help. Harry Howe, interviewed in 1981, recalled, “We saw this big cloud of brown dust and dirt and a slight noise. And there was an arm sticking out from underneath the wheel of a truck. So two of us got a hold of his arm and pulled and unfortunately, we pulled his arm off.”

 

Rescue efforts would continue for days. It would take weeks to clear the streets, and months for it to wash out of the harbor.

It was later concluded that the steel plates comprising the molasses tank were thinner than the original plans had called for. There were too few rivets to keep the weaker plates in place. It was calculated that that at the time of the explosion, the overfilled tank exerted a pressure of 31,000 pounds per square inch on the tank walls. The under built tank had no chance. A court would decide that the company that owned the tank was responsible for the damage and deaths, although they would maintain for years they were victims of an anarchist’s bomb.

 

All that remains to remind people of this tragedy is a small green plaque in Langone Park, which covers much of the area that had been flooded 100 years ago. People say you can still smell the molasses on hot days.

References:

This is an affiliate link: [amazon_textlink asin=’B004477UGC’ text=’Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 by Stephen Puleo ‘ template=’ProductLink’ store=’002′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’d0664dde-54f7-42fb-87c2-60eceec1d393′]

https://alum.mit.edu/slice/solving-great-molasses-flood-mystery

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/molasses-flood-physics-science/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/great-boston-molasses-flood-1919-killed-21-after-2-million-n958326

https://www.wbur.org/news/2019/01/15/boston-molasses-flood-100-years-later

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/boston-molasses-flood-100-year-anniversary