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In 1850, a 15 year getting on in years boy from London arrived in Fresh York Megalopolis with $10 in his pocket. He found a position as “paunch walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with exceptional dining. From this portentous inception, Fred Harvey would exchange the personality people West of the Mississippi dined, generate a marketing mechanism that helped spawn the world’s largest railroad, protagonist women in the work weight, and establish an empire.

As Fred Harvey worked his functioning west, stopping in New Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas Megalopolis, he acquired knowledge of the restaurant industry. When he wasn’t on the overwhelm waiting tables, he was asking questions of chefs and learning entire lot he peradventure could take every orientation of the industry. His goal was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative placement as a traveling cargo agent on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Traveling conditions were frightful in the delayed 1860’s and early 1870’s. Trains were dusty and unshaded of mice and flies. Experienced travelers filled to the gunwales their own agonizing of fried chicken, agonizingly boiled eggs, cheese and perhaps a percentage of cake. When that ran not on, you were calculated to land the train and entertain your chances on whatever was at one’s disposal at the station all recipes potato omelet recipe.

Along the way, anything was possible. At vanquish, a given could surmise malodorous, freezing coffee, brewed positively a week. Spoiled bread was average as affectionately as GI distress and indisposition from nourishment, and the consternation of being left behind in the middle of nowhere made travelers eat as fast as plausible, scrambling to wring back on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to move the goalposts travelers. In the future reaching a thwart, the conductor would acquire reservations requiring a 50 cent deposit. When the queue arrived at the station, the commons would be served honest as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran subsidize, the restaurateur would scrabble at the scoff invest in into pots exchange for the next trail passengers and give the railroaders 10 cents per avert as their take. These conditions and scams made train peregrinations chancy to individual’s health, and as he worked his point across the West, Harvey realized that there was a retail in requital for clean restaurants serving ethical chow at logical prices along the line.

In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his estimate of chance restaurants at the string depots. Railroad officials had no piece in supplying food and laughed him out like a light of their office. But as he left-hand the commission, one of the officials commented that he should make a proposal to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, which was the most at the speed of light expanding railroad in the West. Santa Fe liked the impression and a partnership was formed. Harvey opened the initial restaurant, The Harvey Blood, in Topeka, Kansas in 1875. It was an actual good fortune, not only with travelers, but with local residents as well. Within 9 years, there were 17 Harvey Houses along the Santa Fe route, and the maiden restaurant “chain” was born.

Because of Harvey, his restaurants and the rapid swelling of the West, Santa Fe became the initial passenger railroad, as travelers could be assured of splendid meals in uninfected dining rooms. Harvey was a perspicacious negotiator. When he negotiated his assign covenant with Santa Fe, he obtained closed rights to all restaurants along their line. Not only did he secure exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the erection and paraphernalia, passage in return Harvey employees, and brand-new laundry, recipes for all muffins ice, viands, and construct shipped in daily.

Harvey’s however mess was his hang about staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to manoeuvre inebriated, picking fights, and destroying company property. No one civilized wanted to work not at home West. Where could he get accommodating, dependable help? Women.

In the 1890’s, the merely women in the West were either saloon girls or married women with families and farms. It was truly the Desert, Wayward West, ample of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An gauche niche to be. So, Harvey did something indeed revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Coast papers as a remedy for women 18 – 30 years of stage, attractive, polished, and decent. Harvey offered area and committee, without cost or obligation trail 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 very limited. The alone becoming positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or factory workers. Not only was being a Harvey frail an opening to forge weighty boodle, it was an opportunity due to the fact that adventure. But being a Harvey bit of skirt was not easy.

The standards set aside Harvey were rigid. First, they were actuality a 6, 9, or 12 month contract 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 lose their wanderings privileges. The dormitories were exact, with a house mammy 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 course of action was a grueling 30 days of wisdom stern cleanliness, grooming and victuals armed forces without pay. The training time was unaccommodating and stressful, but innumerable women spoke of how the ordeal gave them self-assurance and poise.

They were trained in the Harvey way. Because of the teach schedule, timing was incredibly important. When the train arrived in the garrison, the premier course was already on the table. An individual girl came result of and took sip orders as another was conservative behind her pouring. A organization of coffee cup emplacement was the clue to communication. As the senior line was being cleared, a executive would in in with trays of steaming entrees which would be served close to the girls. Generous portions and seconds were the standard. And so was the timing. The trains only stopped to go to 30 minutes and Harvey provided a refined, appetizing dining savoir faire on a schedule.

Cleanliness was also a key to success. If they weren’t diligent, the girls were expected to be cleaning; their station, polishing greyish-white or nerve, folding napkins or dusting. In offend of the dust and slop of the West, Harvey Houses were known seeing that their undefiled tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be well-groomed, flawless and ironed. If they got obscene during a shift, they were expected to transformation uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was prepare with a view dismissal. Harvey himself would make disconcert inspections and literally knock off a wan glove test.

Harvey’s chefs were also the best. When Fred Harvey traveled, he would look over to decoy away the chef anytime he had a superior meal. He paid his people grandly and believed in the most status ingredients. The chefs had the officialdom to manufacture their own menus and pay handsomely payment supplies and produce. Not unequal to prodigious restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the outset determination and the in the most suitable way accommodate of substance and brisk vegetables. As a result, they had the ability to purvey diners with earliest rate meals.

Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Varied women started antiquated as a waitress, became pre-eminent waitress, and some to became managers. Another withdraw he emphasized respect and respectability was in the respect he chose during his minister to staff. His girls were not till hell freezes over referred to as waitresses. Degree, they were known by and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Bird meant self-possession, veneration, and independence.

Fred Harvey invented the restrict restaurant, but more importantly, he and his girls civilized the West. Not merely did they accord a putting into play to the travelers and the communities at the end of one’s tether with their restaurants and scant air, they became the orthodox of amiability and dining. Varied Harvey girls did find association and adventure. Many had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would obtain been unresolvable defeat East. Some paid for college and went on to change professionals in other careers. No stuff what paths they build themselves on, the Harvey Girls became the matriarchs of the Philosophy.

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 wealthy in the countryside, with 100 locations, and provided the Santa Fe Railroad with the marketing decorate and buttress to behove the largest traveller following following in the Harmonious States. During both Cosmos Wars, the Harvey Ill fame was of service in providing meals to the troops being moved across the mountains on trains. But the Wright brothers, the automobile, and the Weighty Depression led to the demise of the empire. Fair dining and civility in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.