In the late nineteenth century, as cities like Boston and New York grew
more congested, the streets became clogged with plodding, horse-drawn
carts. When the great blizzard of 1888 crippled the entire northeast, a
solution had to be found. Two brothers from one of the nation's great
families—Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of
New York—pursued the dream of his city digging America's first subway,
and the great race was on. The competition between Boston and New York
played out in an era not unlike our own, one of economic upheaval,
life-changing innovations, class warfare, bitter political tensions, and
the question of America’s place in the world.
The Race Underground
is peopled with the famous, like Boss Tweed, Grover Cleveland and
Thomas Edison, and the not-so-famous, from brilliant engineers to the
countless "sandhogs" who shoveled, hoisted and blasted their way into
the earth’s crust, sometimes losing their lives in the construction
of the tunnels. Doug Most chronicles the science of the subway, looks at
the centuries of fears people overcame about traveling underground and
tells a story as exciting as any ever ripped from the pages of U.S.
history. The Race Underground is a great American saga of two rival
American cities, their rich, powerful and sometimes corrupt interests,
and an invention that changed the lives of millions.
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