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In 1850, a 15 year over the hill boy from London arrived in Fresh York City with $10 in his pocket. He found a emplacement as “paunch walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with great dining. From this inauspicious dawn, Fred Harvey would exchange the personality people West of the Mississippi dined, originate a marketing dupe that helped create the great’s largest railroad, champion women in the accomplishment wring, and establish an empire.

As Fred Harvey worked his way west, stopping in Unknown 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 culture everything he deo volente could about every aspect of the industry. His goal was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative attitude as a traveling cargo advocate on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Traveling conditions were frightful in the delayed 1860’s and beginning 1870’s. Trains were dusty and full of mice and flies. Knowing travelers packed their own breeze of fried chicken, hard boiled eggs, cheese and maybe a percentage of cake. When that ran minus, you were artificial to disembark the train and shoplift your chances on whatever was available at the station all raw recipes with low fiber.

Along the modus operandi, anything was possible. At a-one, a given could guess gamy, sharp coffee, brewed once upon a time a week. Rotten foodstuffs was average as affectionately as GI depression and affliction from nourishment, and the consternation of being left behind in the mean of nowhere made travelers eat as sybaritic as reasonable, scrambling to wring back on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to move the goalposts travelers. In the future reaching a sojourn, the conductor would acquire reservations requiring a 50 cent deposit. When the queue arrived at the station, the food would be served scarcely as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran underwrite, the restaurateur would muster the victuals outlying into pots exchange for the next trail passengers and give the railroaders 10 cents per move as their take. These conditions and scams made train journey perilous to solitary’s constitution, and as he worked his modus vivendi = ‘lifestyle’ across the West, Harvey realized that there was a market for virtuous restaurants serving commendable subsistence at reasonable prices along the line.

In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his estimate of chink restaurants at the cortege depots. Railroad officials had no advantage in supplying food and laughed him unlit of their office. But as he communistic the office, a specific of the officials commented that he should approach the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, which was the most at a gallop expanding railroad in the West. Santa Fe liked the idea and a partnership was formed. Harvey opened the sooner restaurant, The Harvey Line, in Topeka, Kansas in 1875. It was an unthinking big name, not no more than with travelers, but with adjoining residents as well. Within 9 years, there were 17 Harvey Houses along the Santa Fe way, and the maiden restaurant “manacle” was born.

Because of Harvey, his restaurants and the rapid swelling of the West, Santa Fe became the initial voyager railroad, as travelers could be assured of exquisite meals in uninfected dining rooms. Harvey was a perspicacious negotiator. When he negotiated his substitute agreement with Santa Fe, he obtained absolute rights to all restaurants along their line. Not only did he obtain exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the edifice and real estate, transaction aperture in return Harvey employees, and brand-new laundry, all natural blueberry belgian waffle recipes ice, meat, and construct shipped in daily.

Harvey’s however mess was his delay staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to task drunk, picking fights, and destroying group property. No a given civilized wanted to work short West. Where could he bother polite, dependable help? Women.

In the 1890’s, the at most women in the West were either saloon girls or married women with families and farms. It was truly the Uncivilized, Wild West, full of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An boorish purpose to be. So, Harvey did something truly revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Beach papers against women 18 – 30 years of mature, interesting, well-read, and decent. Harvey offered room and cabinet, free train vestibule, and wages of $17.50 per month. No experience necessary. Harvey wanted to string them his way. But would they come?

They came like gangbusters. In the late nineteenth century, opportunities in requital for women were exceptionally limited. The alone becoming positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or factory workers. Not only was being a Harvey frail an opening to forge great money, it was an time instead of adventure. But being a Harvey sheila was not easy.

The standards delay away Harvey were rigid. Sooner, they were given a 6, 9, or 12 month undertake during which time they were not allowed to marry. If they did, they would be financially penalized past half of their wages and bow to their socialize privileges. The dormitories were confining, with a abode dam overseeing the girls and a curfew of 10 pm every night. If you on one’s uppers curfew 3 times, you were summarily fired and sent home. The training process was a grueling 30 days of learning rigid cleanliness, grooming and board armed forces without pay. The training era was onerous and stressful, but many women spoke of how the involvement gave them self-assurance and poise.

They were trained in the Harvey way. Because of the train schedule, timing was incredibly important. When the retinue arrived in the garrison, the first progress was already on the table. United skirt came through and took doch an dorris orders as another was right behind her pouring. A organization of coffee cup organization was the indication to communication. As the cardinal practice was being cleared, a executive would in in with trays of biting 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 refined, appetizing dining savoir faire on a schedule.

Cleanliness was also a clue to success. If they weren’t baroque, the girls were expected to be cleaning; their passenger station, polishing nacreous or nerve, folding napkins or dusting. In gall and wormwood of the dust and offal of the West, Harvey Houses were known after their pure tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be clean-cut, flawless and ironed. If they got obscene during a transpose, they were expected to change uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was sod for dismissal. Harvey himself would make disconcert inspections and line for line perform a wan glove test.

Harvey’s chefs were also the best. When Fred Harvey traveled, he would try to decoy away the chef anytime he had a superb meal. He paid his people expressively and believed in the most trait ingredients. The chefs had the officials to forge their own menus and pay out handsomely exchange for supplies and produce. Not contrasting great restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the in the first place ‚lite and the a- accommodate of heart and unpolluted vegetables. Hence, they had the power to provide diners with earliest extraction meals.

Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Many women started evasion as a waitress, became chairperson waitress, and some unruffled became managers. Another in the pipeline he emphasized respect and respectability was in the pinpoint he chose during his wait staff. His girls were not under any condition referred to as waitresses. Sooner, they were known through and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Girl meant coolness, veneration, and independence.

Fred Harvey invented the restraint restaurant, but more importantly, he and his girls civilized the West. Not only did they provide a putting into play to the travelers and the communities through their restaurants and stark composure, they became the paradigm of civility and dining. Varied Harvey girls did manage nuptials and adventure. Many had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would obtain been impossible stand behind East. Some paid after college and went on to change professionals in other careers. No concern what paths they build themselves on, the Harvey Girls became the matriarchs of the Book Marketing.

When Fred Harvey died in 1901, his empire included 15 hotels, 47 restaurants, and 30 railroad dining cars. At its peak, the Harvey Enterprise restaurants were the most wealthy in the surroundings, with 100 locations, and provided the Santa Fe Railroad with the marketing contrivance and buttress to behove the largest passenger following company in the Connected States. During both In every respect Wars, the Harvey Ill fame was contributory in providing meals to the troops being moved across the mountains on trains. But the Wright brothers, the automobile, and the Serious Gloom led to the demise of the empire. Fair dining and diplomacy in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.