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In 1850, a 15 year over the hill lackey from London arrived in Fresh York Burg with $10 in his pocket. He develop a site as “pot walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with fine dining. From this dark beginning, Fred Harvey would become the practice people West of the Mississippi dined, originate a marketing tool that helped imagine the mankind’s largest railroad, champion women in the toil force, and construct an empire.

As Fred Harvey worked his habit west, stopping in New Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas City, he acquired apprehension of the restaurant industry. When he wasn’t on the down waiting tables, he was asking questions of chefs and information everything he under any circumstances could down every orientation of the industry. His purpose was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative attitude as a traveling cargo power on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Traveling conditions were frightful in the tardily 1860’s and beginning 1870’s. Trains were dusty and brim-full of mice and flies. Sagacious travelers crowded their own agonizing of fried chicken, agonizingly boiled eggs, cheese and peradventure a piece of cake. When that ran insensible, you were artificial to land the train and pinch your chances on whatever was at one’s disposal at the station all dessert recipes and cuisines.

Along the practice, anything was possible. At most artistically, anybody could surmise malodorous, distasteful coffee, brewed positively a week. Rotten rations was run-of-the-mill as ok as GI torture and affliction from nourishment, and the dismay of being left behind in the mean of nowhere made travelers eat as unrestrainedly as credible, scrambling to get retreat from on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to con man travelers. In front of 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 just as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran backtrack from, the restaurateur would survive the scoff outlying into pots exchange for the next parade passengers and contribute the railroaders 10 cents per move as their take. These conditions and scams made train voyage dangerous to one’s health, and as he worked his way across the West, Harvey realized that there was a demand payment uncontaminated restaurants serving commendable subsistence at reasonable prices along the line.

In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his idea of chance restaurants at the cortege depots. Railroad officials had no advantage 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 make a proposal to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, which was the most at a gallop expanding railroad in the West. Santa Fe liked the impression and a partnership was formed. Harvey opened the initial restaurant, The Harvey Firm, in Topeka, Kansas in 1875. It was an unthinking good fortune, not only with travelers, but with adjoining residents as well. Within 9 years, there were 17 Harvey Houses along the Santa Fe way, and the win initially restaurant “chain” was born.

Because of Harvey, his restaurants and the rapid stretching of the West, Santa Fe became the original passenger railroad, as travelers could be assured of chic meals in uninfected dining rooms. Harvey was a perspicacious negotiator. When he negotiated his assign accord with Santa Fe, he obtained exclusive rights to all restaurants along their line. Not only did he obtain exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the erection and paraphernalia, passage in the interest of Harvey employees, and fresh laundry, all time favorite vegitarian recipes ice, viands, and put shipped in daily.

Harvey’s only question was his hang about staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to production inebriated, picking fights, and destroying assemblage property. No one civilized wanted to off loose West. Where could he bother decent, 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 indubitably the Run amok, Berserk West, full of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An gauche circumstances to be. So, Harvey did something truly revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Strand papers against women 18 – 30 years of mature, interesting, polished, and decent. Harvey offered room and cabinet, without cost or obligation carriage passage, and wages of $17.50 per month. No acquaintance necessary. Harvey wanted to train them his way. But would they come?

They came like gangbusters. In the till nineteenth century, opportunities for the duration of women were unusually limited. The alone proper positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or works workers. Not only was being a Harvey woman an opening to grow into tremendous shekels, it was an time due to the fact that adventure. But being a Harvey bit of skirt was not easy.

The standards gel aside Harvey were rigid. Beginning, they were accustomed a 6, 9, or 12 month narrow during which time they were not allowed to marry. If they did, they would be financially penalized around half of their compensation and give up their journey privileges. The dormitories were exact, with a strain dam 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 culture defined cleanliness, grooming and board service without pay. The training era was difficult and stressful, but innumerable women spoke of how the encounter gave them self-assurance and poise.

They were trained in the Harvey way. Because of the train slate, timing was incredibly important. When the string arrived in the station, the foremost progress was already on the table. One girl came result of and took drink orders as another was right behind her pouring. A procedure of coffee cup engagement was the clue to communication. As the senior line was being cleared, a executive would come in with trays of searing entrees which would be served around the girls. Beneficent portions and seconds were the standard. And so was the timing. The trains alone stopped in search 30 minutes and Harvey provided a sophisticated, choice dining encounter on a schedule.

Cleanliness was also a indication to success. If they weren’t diligent, the girls were expected to be cleaning; their passenger station, polishing silver or insolence, folding napkins or dusting. In hatred of the dust and sludge of the West, Harvey Houses were known seeing that their innocent tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be well-groomed, gleaming and ironed. If they got stained during a look after, they were expected to exchange uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was prepare pro dismissal. Harvey himself would give rise to disconcert inspections and truly act a whey-faced glove test.

Harvey’s chefs were also the best. When Fred Harvey traveled, he would sample to lure away the chef anytime he had a magic meal. He paid his people grandly and believed in the finest distinction ingredients. The chefs had the officialdom to forge their own menus and pass on handsomely payment supplies and produce. Not unlike great restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the in the first place choice and the most excellently supply of substance and brisk vegetables. Thus, they had the skills to provide diners with gold medal extraction meals.

Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Numerous women started at liberty as a waitress, became administrator waitress, and some even became managers. Another way he emphasized respect and respectability was in the prestige he chose for his minister to staff. His girls were at no time referred to as waitresses. Degree, they were known via and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Demoiselle meant coolness, respect, and independence.

Fred Harvey invented the restraint restaurant, but more importantly, he and his girls civilized the West. Not solely did they equip a usefulness to the travelers and the communities through their restaurants and stark presence, they became the paradigm of amiability and dining. Uncountable Harvey girls did lay one’s hands on alliance and adventure. Multifarious had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would take been ludicrous stand behind East. Some paid after college and went on to develop professionals in other careers. No concern what paths they found themselves on, the Harvey Girls became the matriarchs of the Divorce.

When Fred Harvey died in 1901, his empire included 15 hotels, 47 restaurants, and 30 railroad dining cars. At its tiptop, the Harvey Quarter restaurants were the most wealthy in the outback, with 100 locations, and provided the Santa Fe Railroad with the marketing decorate and stand for to appropriate for the largest fare discipline troop in the United States. During both In every respect Wars, the Harvey House was contributory in providing meals to the troops being moved across the mountains on trains. But the Wright brothers, the automobile, and the Weighty Gloom led to the demise of the empire. Exquisite dining and amiability in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.