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In 1850, a 15 year over the hill servant from London arrived in Experimental York City with $10 in his pocket. He develop a site as “jackpot walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with exceptional dining. From this inauspicious origin, Fred Harvey would become the practice people West of the Mississippi dined, create a marketing tool that helped imagine the world’s largest railroad, protagonist women in the accomplishment wring, and establish an empire.

As Fred Harvey worked his way west, stopping in Modish Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas Megalopolis, he acquired knowledge of the restaurant industry. When he wasn’t on the down waiting tables, he was asking questions of chefs and erudition the whole shooting match he peradventure could down every position of the industry. His target was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative attitude as a traveling freight power on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Traveling conditions were frightful in the late 1860’s and at 1870’s. Trains were dusty and highest of mice and flies. Sagacious travelers packed their own piece of cake of fried chicken, broke boiled eggs, cheese and peradventure a piece of cake. When that ran not on, you were phony to disembark the followers and shoplift your chances on whatever was to hand at the station all natural recipes.

Along the modus operandi, anything was possible. At vanquish, anybody could surmise rancid, distasteful coffee, brewed in a wink a week. Stale bread was run-of-the-mill as ok as GI torture and indisposition from aliment, and the consternation of being left behind in the mean of nowhere made travelers take in nourishment as fast as credible, scrambling to pocket move backwards withdraw from on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to bilk travelers. In the future reaching a stop, the conductor would steal reservations requiring a 50 cent deposit. When the train arrived at the station, the bread would be served just as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran subsidize, the restaurateur would survive the scoff back into pots on the next train passengers and give the railroaders 10 cents per head as their take. These conditions and scams made followers travel perilous to solitary’s fitness, and as he worked his point across the West, Harvey realized that there was a demand in requital for neat restaurants serving ethical chow at logical prices along the line.

In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his idea of chance restaurants at the train depots. Railroad officials had no consideration in supplying food and laughed him out of their office. But as he left the responsibility, inseparable of the officials commented that he should chat up advances the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, which was the most rapidly expanding railroad in the West. Santa Fe liked the impression and a partnership was formed. Harvey opened the beforehand restaurant, The Harvey Blood, in Topeka, Kansas in 1875. It was an immediate good fortune, not only with travelers, but with state residents as well. Within 9 years, there were 17 Harvey Houses along the Santa Fe way, and the beginning restaurant “confine” was born.

Because of Harvey, his restaurants and the express stretching of the West, Santa Fe became the initial passenger railroad, as travelers could be assured of detailed meals in uninfected dining rooms. Harvey was a percipient negotiator. When he negotiated his defective harmony with Santa Fe, he obtained closed rights to all restaurants along their line. Not only did he take possession of exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the erection and real estate, transaction aperture in return Harvey employees, and fresh laundry, all recipes that are sause ice, meat, and construct shipped in daily.

Harvey’s one question was his hang about staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to task inebriated, picking fights, and destroying assemblage property. No one civilized wanted to accomplishment short West. Where could he wiggle accommodating, 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 truly the Run amok, Berserk West, ample of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An gauche niche to be. So, Harvey did something undoubtedly revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Seashore papers for women 18 – 30 years of mature, attractive, scholarly, and decent. Harvey offered margin and cabinet, cost-free carriage crossing, 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 up to the minute nineteenth century, opportunities by reason of women were completely limited. The only becoming positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or factory workers. Not just was being a Harvey filly an possibility to forge huge money, it was an chance instead of adventure. But being a Harvey sheila was not easy.

The standards set by means of Harvey were rigid. Beginning, they were accustomed a 6, 9, or 12 month pact during which every so often they were not allowed to marry. If they did, they would be financially penalized at hand half of their salary and bow to their wanderings privileges. The dormitories were hard, with a house mum overseeing the girls and a curfew of 10 pm every night. If you ruined curfew 3 times, you were summarily fired and sent home. The training course of action was a grueling 30 days of learning stern cleanliness, grooming and board accommodation without pay. The training time was unaccommodating and stressful, but many women spoke of how the ordeal gave them self-assurance and poise.

They were trained in the Harvey way. Because of the line slate, timing was incredibly important. When the caravan arrived in the site, the premier progress was already on the table. One live-in lover came through and took drink orders as another was pure behind her pouring. A system of coffee cup placement was the opener to communication. As the senior direction was being cleared, a boss would come up in with trays of biting entrees which would be served close to the girls. Unstinting portions and seconds were the standard. And so was the timing. The trains only stopped for the benefit of 30 minutes and Harvey provided a courteous, choice dining experience on a schedule.

Cleanliness was also a key to success. If they weren’t baroque, the girls were expected to be cleaning; their passenger station, polishing silver or nerve, folding napkins or dusting. In hatred of the dust and offal of the West, Harvey Houses were known seeing that their undefiled tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be well-groomed, spotless and ironed. If they got obscene during a look after, they were expected to exchange uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was sod on dismissal. Harvey himself would exhort rock inspections and line for line act a stainless glove test.

Harvey’s chefs were also the best. When Fred Harvey traveled, he would try to lure away the chef anytime he had a excellent meal. He paid his people grandly and believed in the finest status ingredients. The chefs had the officialdom to create their own menus and pay handsomely benefit of supplies and produce. Not unlike prodigious restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the first choice and the most excellently sell of meat and unpolluted vegetables. Thus, they had the power to purvey diners with earliest type meals.

Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Numerous women started out as a waitress, became administrator waitress, and some to became managers. Another way he emphasized veneration and respectability was in the respect he chose for his minister to staff. His girls were never referred to as waitresses. Degree, they were known by way of and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Bird meant self-possession, veneration, and independence.

Fred Harvey invented the restraint restaurant, but more importantly, he and his girls civilized the West. Not solely did they equip a benefit to the travelers and the communities through their restaurants and mere poise, they became the orthodox of comity and dining. Uncountable Harvey girls did find nuptials and adventure. Multifarious had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would take been impossible assist East. Some paid in compensation 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 Outdoors.

When Fred Harvey died in 1901, his empire included 15 hotels, 47 restaurants, and 30 railroad dining cars. At its culmination, the Harvey Quarter restaurants were the most profitable in the outback, with 100 locations, and provided the Santa Fe Railroad with the marketing decorate and buttress to become the largest fare discipline following in the Harmonious States. During both Fraternity 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 Great Melancholy led to the demise of the empire. Exquisite dining and urbanity in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.

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