The book for this year’s Medford Public Library Community Read is “The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry That Built America’s First Subway,” by Doug Most. In the late nineteenth century, brothers Henry Melville Whitney of Boston and William Collins Whitney of New York both pursued the dream of his city digging America’s first subway. 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.

In this talk based on his book, Doug Most will talk about the science of the subway, 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.