'Horatio's Drive'

By Robert Siegel

Published July 16, 2003 at 12:00 AM EDT

One hundred years ago, Horatio Nelson Jackson took up the challenge of a $50 bet and stood up for the latest trend in technology -- the automobile. A Vermont native and a physician by training, Jackson agreed to undertake a cross-country drive, from San Francisco to New York City. For company, he had bicycle mechanic Sewall Crocker and a bulldog named Bud.

The story of this epic, months-long motor trip is the subject of a new book by Dayton Duncan and a documentary by Ken Burns, to air this fall on PBS. NPR's Robert Siegel, host of All Things Considered, talks with Duncan about Horatio's Drive.

Robert Siegel

Prior to his retirement, Robert Siegel was the senior host of NPR's award-winning evening newsmagazine All Things Considered. With 40 years of experience working in radio news, Siegel hosted the country's most-listened-to, afternoon-drive-time news radio program and reported on stories and happenings all over the globe, and reported from a variety of locations across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. He signed off in his final broadcast of All Things Considered on January 5, 2018.

See stories by Robert Siegel

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