--- title: Boston Subway: See the History in Exclusive Video Clip description: This clip from the new documentary 'The Race Underground' shows how 19th-century immigration led to the building of America's first subway. canonical: https://time.com/4650094/first-subway-history-documentary/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-01-31T14:00:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-06-24T06:56:55.217Z article:section: History og:title: How Immigration Helped the United States Get Its First Subway System og:description: See an exclusive clip from the new documentary 'The Race Underground' og:url: https://time.com/4650094/first-subway-history-documentary/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78528038193e65ce/6988b75786f68e9b956e348e/race-underground.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1280 og:image:height: 720 og:image:alt: The Race Underground og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Immigration Helped the United States Get Its First Subway System twitter:description: See an exclusive clip from the new documentary 'The Race Underground' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78528038193e65ce/6988b75786f68e9b956e348e/race-underground.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Immigration Helped the United States Get Its First Subway System ## Video: This Video Is No Longer Available [Watch (HLS stream): This Video Is No Longer Available](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/fKodeUO6.m3u8) (0:10)  _Published 2026-06-23. See an exclusive clip from the new documentary The Race Underground_  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 31, 2017 2:00 PM UTC  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 31, 2017 2:00 PM UTC By the time Boston [opened](http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=254) the United States’ first subway system, roughly 120 years ago on Sept. 1, 1897, the need for such a network was inescapable. As seen in this clip from the new PBS American Experience documentary [_The Race Underground_](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/race-underground/), premiering on Tuesday, Boston wasn’t the only city where officials knew it was time to figure out a way for their growing populations[ to get around](http://time.com/3746512/underground-scene-new-yorks-subway-back-in-the-day/) — but as explained by the film, based on a book of the same name by Doug Most, the Massachusetts capital illustrated the problem more than most other places. The reason: the mass wave of migration seen by American cities in the late 19th century, as immigrants from around the world and Americans from more rural areas flocked to urban centers in hopes of a better life. As a result, Boston was an extraordinarily crowded place, a relatively tiny city with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants and thousands of horses helping them get around. Smells, manure and noise assaulted the citizenry, and there was no sign of the problem letting up. As historian Clifton Hood explains in this clip, “The city is growing but the transit system isn’t growing with it.” One solution, inspired by underground transportation systems that had been built in cities like London, was to move the streetcar traffic below ground. It wasn’t an easy sell. Not only did politicians and business leaders disagree about the logistics, but many people resisted for a simpler reason: unfamiliar with the very idea of a subway, they feared that human beings simply weren’t supposed to be underground like that. Fears were compounded by the many graves uncovered in the process of digging. Nevertheless, thanks to the influx of new residents, such concerns had to be resolved. And once Boston had proved the system could work, other cities — like [New York](http://time.com/3534565/new-york-city-subway-history/) — soon followed. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4650094/first-subway-history-documentary/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4650094/first-subway-history-documentary/"},"headline":"How Immigration Helped the United States Get Its First Subway System","datePublished":"2017-01-31T14:00:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-06-24T06:56:55.217Z","description":"See an exclusive clip from the new documentary The Race Underground","url":"https://time.com/4650094/first-subway-history-documentary/","keywords":["Transportation","movies"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78528038193e65ce/6988b75786f68e9b956e348e/race-underground.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78528038193e65ce/6988b75786f68e9b956e348e/race-underground.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The Race Underground","caption":"","creditText":"Still from 'The Race Underground' / PBS American Experience","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4650094/first-subway-history-documentary/","name":"How Immigration Helped the United States Get Its First Subway System"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"This Video Is No Longer Available","description":"See an exclusive clip from the new documentary The Race Underground","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/fKodeUO6/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2026-06-23T15:00:44.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/fKodeUO6.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4650094/first-subway-history-documentary/","duration":"PT10S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4650094/first-subway-history-documentary/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```