Dr. Gary Hylander – Boston Molasses Flood

The Westborough Public Library welcomes back Dr. Gary Hylander for a
history lecture series, “1919@100”. Join us for this three part series,
which begins on Mon. May 6th at 6:30 p.m. and continues on May 13th and
May 20th.

This year marks the centennial of the calendar year 1919. Following the
end of the Great War of 1914-1918, America was rocked by labor unrest
and bombings. A Red Scare swept the nation. What sinister forces were
behind the Black Sox World Series scandal? A fatal influenza epidemic
overwhelmed the resources of the medical community. Women voted, bobbed
their hair and smoked in public. World War I was where the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries parted ways forever. In the 1920 election,
presidential nominee, Warren Harding, campaigned on a return to
“normalcy”.

Monday, May 20, 2019 @ 6:30 P.M.

STICKY BUSINESS: THE BOSTON MOLASSES FLOOD

In the early afternoon of January 15, 1919, a fifty-foot steel tank
filled with over two million gallons of molasses collapsed in Boston’s
North End sending its sticky contents in a fifteen-foot wave through the
neighborhood streets. The disaster was blamed on immigrant anarchists.
The event knocked prohibition and the end of World War I out of the
headlines and resulted in a huge civil law suit that was not resolved
until 1925.

To watch the full presentation, Click Here.