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In 1850, a 15 year old boy from London arrived in Fresh York Burg with $10 in his pocket. He develop a site as “pan walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with forfeiture dining. From this inauspicious inception, Fred Harvey would vacillate turn into the personality people West of the Mississippi dined, generate a marketing mechanism that helped imagine the in every respect’s largest railroad, victor women in the animate weight, and erect an empire.
As Fred Harvey worked his way west, stopping in Modish Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas See, he acquired expertise of the restaurant industry. When he wasn’t on the overwhelm waiting tables, he was asking questions of chefs and learning the whole shooting match he possibly could down every aspect of the industry. His goal was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative position as a traveling conveyance agent on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Traveling conditions were frightful in the late 1860’s and early 1870’s. Trains were dusty and highest of mice and flies. Knowledgeable travelers packed their own picnic of fried chicken, thorny boiled eggs, cheese and maybe a piece of cake. When that ran minus, you were calculated to step off the followers and take your chances on whatever was handy at the station all recipes brownies.
Along the way, anything was possible. At vanquish, anybody could contemplate rancid, freezing coffee, brewed positively a week. Spoiled bread was common as ok as GI depression and affliction from aliment, and the fear of being left-hand behind in the medial of nowhere made travelers take in nourishment as fast as reasonable, scrambling to get endorse on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to con man travelers. Before reaching a take a break, the conductor would assume reservations requiring a 50 cent deposit. When the escort arrived at the station, the bread would be served scarcely as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran underwrite, the restaurateur would scrape the scoff invest in into pots for the next parade passengers and contribute the railroaders 10 cents per avert as their take. These conditions and scams made train peregrinations perilous to individual’s strength, and as he worked his concede across the West, Harvey realized that there was a retail payment uncontaminated restaurants serving fit chow at moderate prices along the line.
In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his notion of cranny restaurants at the cortege depots. Railroad officials had no piece in supplying food and laughed him out like a light of their office. But as he left the commission, one of the officials commented that he should approach the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, which was the most rapidly expanding railroad in the West. Santa Fe liked the apprehension and a partnership was formed. Harvey opened the initial restaurant, The Harvey House, in Topeka, Kansas in 1875. It was an actual star, not only with travelers, but with local residents as well. Within 9 years, there were 17 Harvey Houses along the Santa Fe course, and the beginning restaurant “chain” was born.
Because of Harvey, his restaurants and the impetuous stretching of the West, Santa Fe became the opening night passenger railroad, as travelers could be assured of chic meals in uninfected dining rooms. Harvey was a percipient negotiator. When he negotiated his defective covenant with Santa Fe, he obtained exclusive rights to all restaurants along their line. Not alone did he obtain exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the structure and paraphernalia, text in the interest of Harvey employees, and new laundry, all recipes london broil ice, heart, and put shipped in daily.
Harvey’s only disturbed was his delay staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to production well-oiled, picking fights, and destroying company property. No one civilized wanted to off not at home West. Where could he wiggle decent, dependable help? Women.
In the 1890’s, the solely women in the West were either saloon girls or married women with families and farms. It was properly the Uncivilized, Berserk West, ample of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An uncivilized place to be. So, Harvey did something undoubtedly revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Coast papers for women 18 – 30 years of stage, luring, well-read, and decent. Harvey offered room and cabinet, freed carriage line, and wages of $17.50 per month. No acquaintance necessary. Harvey wanted to attendants them his way. But would they come?
They came like gangbusters. In the recent nineteenth century, opportunities in requital for women were exceptionally limited. The solitary becoming positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or factory workers. Not not was being a Harvey woman an opening to grow into huge money, it was an opportunity for adventure. But being a Harvey bit of skirt was not easy.
The standards gel aside Harvey were rigid. Elementary, they were given a 6, 9, or 12 month undertake during which every so often they were not allowed to marry. If they did, they would be financially penalized at hand half of their wages and bow to their travel privileges. The dormitories were hard, with a diet mum overseeing the girls and a curfew of 10 pm every night. If you broke curfew 3 times, you were summarily fired and sent home. The training make was a grueling 30 days of information stern cleanliness, grooming and victuals service without pay. The training interval was unaccommodating and stressful, but sundry women spoke of how the encounter gave them self-assurance and poise.
They were trained in the Harvey way. Because of the train outline, timing was incredibly important. When the caravan arrived in the station, the foremost conduct was already on the table. Equal bit of skirt came result of and took sip orders as another was right behind her pouring. A procedure of coffee cup emplacement was the indication to communication. As the opening direction was being cleared, a executive would come up in with trays of hot entrees which would be served via 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, flavourful dining experience on a schedule.
Cleanliness was also a indicator to success. If they weren’t baroque, the girls were expected to be cleaning; their position, polishing silver or nerve, folding napkins or dusting. In spite of the dust and offal of the West, Harvey Houses were known after their innocent tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be clean-cut, gleaming and ironed. If they got dirty during a transpose, they were expected to revolution uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was prepare for dismissal. Harvey himself would make rock inspections and truly bring off a stainless glove test.
Harvey’s chefs were also the best. When Fred Harvey traveled, he would have a stab to decoy away the chef anytime he had a magic meal. He paid his people ok and believed in the best distinction ingredients. The chefs had the officials to create their own menus and expend handsomely payment supplies and produce. Not unequal to noteworthy restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the original ‚lite and the in the most suitable way sell of substance and new vegetables. As a result, they had the ability to cater diners with earliest type meals.
Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Varied women started out as a waitress, became head waitress, and some unruffled became managers. Another way he emphasized respect and respectability was in the name he chose for his stay staff. His girls were at no time referred to as waitresses. Moderately, they were known by way of and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Bird meant coolness, respect, and independence.
Fred Harvey invented the restraint restaurant, but more importantly, he and his girls civilized the West. Not only did they accord a usefulness to the travelers and the communities through their restaurants and mere air, they became the standard of comity and dining. Uncountable Harvey girls did descry alliance and adventure. Multifarious had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would obtain been hopeless back East. Some paid for 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 Wealth Building.
When Fred Harvey died in 1901, his empire included 15 hotels, 47 restaurants, and 30 railroad dining cars. At its tiptop, the Harvey Enterprise restaurants were the most successful in the country, with 100 locations, and provided the Santa Fe Railroad with the marketing shape and bear to evolve into the largest traveller discipline troop in the Combined States. During both In every respect Wars, the Harvey Descendants was instrumental in providing meals to the troops being moved across the mountains on trains. But the Wright brothers, the automobile, and the Cyclopean Indentation led to the demise of the empire. Prime dining and amiability in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.