06.17.2026
In 1909, America was home to 253 automakers, a landscape of visionaries, schemers, and would-be barons of the new century. But when playboy millionaire M. Robert Guggenheim announced an audacious “Ocean to Ocean” contest from New York City to the Seattle World’s Fair, only three companies were brassy enough to show up at the starting line: Acme, Ford, and Shawmut, a promising but star-crossed carmaker from Boston, trying to survive after a factory fire. Oddsmakers favored the Acme and Itala, a pricy import also joining the race, while dismissing the pint-sized Ford — a homely little number called the Model T— and the long-shot Shawmut. In fact, many didn’t believe any of the cars would reach Seattle at all, as they would need to forge a 4,106-mile course of mountain ranges, mud bogs, washed-out wagon bridges, and harrowing canyon trails, long before the era of asphalt highways, seatbelts, and service stations. But Henry Ford was intent on proving that the Model T could go the distance and beat out the muscular luxury cars—and he didn’t plan to leave it to chance. Indeed, a little over three weeks after the race began, a Ford crossed the line hours ahead of the Shawmut. Except that victory was a fraud. The Hardest, Longest Race is a colorful tale of ambition and subterfuge, but it is also a love letter to America at the turn of the Twentieth Century. As a seeming people’s champion—a car for the masses—traverses the vast nation, Moskowitz brings to vivid life the diverse populace and landscape that it would soon transform.
About the Speaker
Eric Moskowitz spent 12 years as a reporter at The Boston Globe, where he won the National Headliner Award for feature writing, shared in the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath, and was one of the lead reporters on “The Valedictorians Project,” a Pulitzer finalist examining obstacles to college and career success for many top Boston Public Schools graduates. He has written for The Atlantic and The New York Times, and stories have been featured in The Best American Sports Writingand The Best American Newspaper Narratives anthologies. He recently started a new role as a staff writer at Harvard.
Doug Most is a lifelong journalist and author whose career has spanned newspapers, magazines, and universities up and down the East Coast. He was named Journalist of the Year while at The Record in Bergen County, New Jersey, for his coverage of a tragic story about two teens charged with killing their newborn, a story he turned into a true-crime book titled Always in Our Hearts. After a stint at Boston Magazine, he worked for fifteen years at The Boston Globe as the Sunday Magazine editor, and deputy managing editor/special projects. His 2014 nonfiction book, The Race Underground, told the story of the birth of subways in America in the late 1800s and was adapted into a PBS/American Experience documentary. His latest book, Launching Liberty, tells the human story of the Liberty ships of World War II.