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In 1850, a 15 year over the hill servant from London arrived in Fresh York Big apple with $10 in his pocket. He develop a emplacement as “paunch walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with fine dining. From this inauspicious inception, Fred Harvey would become the personality people West of the Mississippi dined, spawn a marketing mechanism that helped engender the great’s largest railroad, protagonist women in the work force, and construct an empire.
As Fred Harvey worked his way west, stopping in Different Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas City, he acquired expertise of the restaurant industry. When he wasn’t on the thrash waiting tables, he was asking questions of chefs and information everything he peradventure could about every orientation of the industry. His aspiration was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative attitude as a traveling cargo agent on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Traveling conditions were frightful in the tardily 1860’s and anciently 1870’s. Trains were dusty and highest of mice and flies. Knowing travelers crowded their own breeze of fried chicken, broke boiled eggs, cheese and peradventure a percentage of cake. When that ran out, you were phony to disembark the followers and pinch your chances on whatever was available at the station all natural recipes for making deodorant.
Along the functioning, anything was possible. At vanquish, one could surmise gamy, distasteful coffee, brewed in a wink a week. Perverted bread was average as affectionately as GI difficulty and affliction from food, and the dismay of being nautical port behind in the mesial of nowhere made travelers devour as fast as plausible, scrambling to get retreat from on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to bilk travelers. Ahead of reaching a sojourn, the conductor would assume reservations requiring a 50 cent deposit. When the escort arrived at the position, the food would be served just as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran underwrite, the restaurateur would survive the food outlying into pots on the next parade passengers and give up the railroaders 10 cents per chief honcho as their take. These conditions and scams made followers travel perilous to individual’s health, and as he worked his modus vivendi = ‘lifestyle’ across the West, Harvey realized that there was a market payment clean restaurants serving fit food at logical prices along the line.
In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his notion of chance restaurants at the household depots. Railroad officials had no interest in supplying prog and laughed him out of their office. But as he left-hand the commission, inseparable of the officials commented that he should path the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, which was the most like greased lightning expanding railroad in the West. Santa Fe liked the idea and a partnership was formed. Harvey opened the beforehand restaurant, The Harvey Firm, in Topeka, Kansas in 1875. It was an unthinking success, not only with travelers, but with adjoining residents as well. Within 9 years, there were 17 Harvey Houses along the Santa Fe course, and the maiden restaurant “secure” was born.
Because of Harvey, his restaurants and the rapid stretching of the West, Santa Fe became the original rider railroad, as travelers could be assured of exquisite meals in unmixed dining rooms. Harvey was a percipient negotiator. When he negotiated his assign accord with Santa Fe, he obtained choice rights to all restaurants along their line. Not alone did he obtain exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the erection and quiddity, text repayment for Harvey employees, and brand-new laundry, all natural fruit juice recipes ice, heart, and produce shipped in daily.
Harvey’s not question was his wait staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to production inebriated, picking fights, and destroying company property. No in unison civilized wanted to dispose short West. Where could he bother polite, dependable help? Women.
In the 1890’s, the only women in the West were either saloon girls or married women with families and farms. It was indubitably the Uncivilized, Berserk West, ample of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An uncouth niche to be. So, Harvey did something truly revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Coast papers as a remedy for women 18 – 30 years of adulthood, interesting, well-read, and decent. Harvey offered area and cabinet, cost-free trail passage, and wages of $17.50 per month. No acquaintance necessary. Harvey wanted to edify them his way. But would they come?
They came like gangbusters. In the late nineteenth century, opportunities in requital for women were unusually limited. The at most suitable positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or mill workers. Not just was being a Harvey girl an chance to make tremendous money, it was an chance instead of adventure. But being a Harvey lass was not easy.
The standards agreed by Harvey were rigid. Beginning, they were given a 6, 9, or 12 month narrow during which time they were not allowed to marry. If they did, they would be financially penalized at hand half of their salary and give up their socialize privileges. The dormitories were confining, with a abode mammy overseeing the girls and a curfew of 10 pm every night. If you hard up curfew 3 times, you were summarily fired and sent home. The training make was a grueling 30 days of wisdom rigid cleanliness, grooming and table maintenance without pay. The training era was difficult and stressful, but sundry women spoke of how the experience gave them self-assurance and poise.
They were trained in the Harvey way. Because of the line outline, timing was incredibly important. When the retinue arrived in the garrison, the foremost progress was already on the table. An individual girl came thoroughly and took sip orders as another was pure behind her pouring. A procedure of coffee cup placement was the opener to communication. As the opening direction was being cleared, a executive would come up in with trays of steaming entrees which would be served close to the girls. Beneficent portions and seconds were the standard. And so was the timing. The trains alone stopped to go to 30 minutes and Harvey provided a courteous, appetizing dining happening on a schedule.
Cleanliness was also a indicator to success. If they weren’t detailed, the girls were expected to be cleaning; their post, polishing silver or brass, folding napkins or dusting. In spite of the dust and slop of the West, Harvey Houses were known pro their innocent tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be well-groomed, unspotted and ironed. If they got stained during a scrape by, they were expected to revolution uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was ground on dismissal. Harvey himself would give rise to rock inspections and literally act a whey-faced glove test.
Harvey’s chefs were also the best. When Fred Harvey traveled, he would look over to lure away the chef anytime he had a superb meal. He paid his people ok and believed in the best status ingredients. The chefs had the sage to father their own menus and expend handsomely exchange for supplies and produce. Not unequal to prodigious restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the first determination and the best sell of meat and brisk vegetables. As a result, they had the skills to lend diners with earliest rate meals.
Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Myriad women started evasion as a waitress, became head waitress, and some orderly became managers. Another disposition he emphasized appreciation and respectability was in the name he chose notwithstanding his minister to staff. His girls were not under any condition referred to as waitresses. Rather, they were known by way of and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Girl meant coolness, veneration, and independence.
Fred Harvey invented the bond restaurant, but more importantly, he and his girls civilized the West. Not solely did they offer a usefulness to the travelers and the communities through their restaurants and stark presence, they became the orthodox of courteousness and dining. Multitudinous Harvey girls did descry marriage and adventure. Diverse had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would be undergoing been impossible back East. Some paid as a service to college and went on to become professionals in other careers. No matter what paths they start themselves on, the Harvey Girls became the matriarchs of the Crafts & Hobbies.
When Fred Harvey died in 1901, his empire included 15 hotels, 47 restaurants, and 30 railroad dining cars. At its mountain top, the Harvey Domicile restaurants were the most affluent in the country, with 100 locations, and provided the Santa Fe Railroad with the marketing decorate and bear to evolve into the largest traveller succession band in the United States. During both Fraternity Wars, the Harvey Ill fame was contributory in providing meals to the troops being moved across the country on trains. But the Wright brothers, the automobile, and the Weighty Gloom led to the demise of the empire. Fine dining and amiability in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.