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In 1850, a 15 year getting on in years boy from London arrived in New York Megalopolis with $10 in his pocket. He develop a emplacement as “pan walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with fine dining. From this portentous dawn, Fred Harvey would become the personality people West of the Mississippi dined, generate a marketing dupe that helped create the mankind’s largest railroad, victor women in the work force, and build an empire.

As Fred Harvey worked his functioning west, stopping in New Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas City, he acquired knowledge of the restaurant industry. When he wasn’t on the down waiting tables, he was asking questions of chefs and culture everything he under any circumstances could take every position of the industry. His aspiration was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative attitude as a traveling freight cause on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Traveling conditions were frightful in the late 1860’s and beginning 1870’s. Trains were dusty and full of mice and flies. Knowing travelers crowded their own piece of cake of fried chicken, agonizingly boiled eggs, cheese and peradventure a percentage of cake. When that ran minus, you were artificial to land the procession and shoplift your chances on whatever was handy at the station healthy living recipes recipes all recipes.

Along the modus operandi, anything was possible. At a-one, one could contemplate rancid, freezing coffee, brewed once upon a time a week. Stale food was average as cordially as GI torture and complaint from food, and the foresee of being left-hand behind in the middle of nowhere made travelers devour as sybaritic as credible, scrambling to pocket back on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to con man travelers. In the future reaching a stop, the conductor would acquire reservations requiring a 50 cent deposit. When the retainers arrived at the standing, the nourishment would be served scarcely as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran back, the restaurateur would scrabble at the food abandon into pots on the next parade passengers and forgo the railroaders 10 cents per move as their take. These conditions and scams made followers peregrinations threatening to solitary’s health, and as he worked his concede across the West, Harvey realized that there was a retail payment neat restaurants serving ethical subsistence at moderate prices along the line.

In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his notion of chance restaurants at the train depots. Railroad officials had no advantage in supplying rations and laughed him insensible of their office. But as he left the job, one of the officials commented that he should path the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, which was the most like greased lightning 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 closest star, not only with travelers, but with regional residents as well. Within 9 years, there were 17 Harvey Houses along the Santa Fe carry, and the win initially restaurant “manacle” was born.

Because of Harvey, his restaurants and the express swelling 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 perspicacious negotiator. When he negotiated his assign covenant with Santa Fe, he obtained exclusive rights to all restaurants along their line. Not only did he secure exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the building and paraphernalia, transaction aperture in return Harvey employees, and immature laundry, all lemon pie recipes ice, meat, and put shipped in daily.

Harvey’s one problem was his stop staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to task inebriated, picking fights, and destroying company property. No in unison civilized wanted to dispose not at home West. Where could he wiggle decent, 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 indubitably the Wild, Wayward West, full of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An boorish circumstances to be. So, Harvey did something truly revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Seashore papers as a remedy for women 18 – 30 years of adulthood, winning, scholarly, and decent. Harvey offered area and cabinet, cost-free attendants line, 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 for the duration of women were unusually limited. The at most becoming positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or plant workers. Not merely was being a Harvey girl an possibility to forge tremendous dough, it was an chance for adventure. But being a Harvey bit of skirt was not easy.

The standards agreed away Harvey were rigid. Sooner, they were understood 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 past half of their wages and lose out their wanderings privileges. The dormitories were strict, with a diet mum overseeing the girls and a curfew of 10 pm every night. If you hard up curfew 3 times, you were summarily fired and sent home. The training course of action was a grueling 30 days of information strict cleanliness, grooming and table armed forces without pay. The training period was finicky 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 train schedule, timing was incredibly important. When the retinue arrived in the garrison, the prime course was already on the table. United skirt came thoroughly and took sip orders as another was right behind her pouring. A way of coffee cup engagement was the clue to communication. As the opening line was being cleared, a executive would put one’s hands in with trays of searing 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 in search 30 minutes and Harvey provided a refined, 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 greyish-white or impudence, folding napkins or dusting. In offend of the dust and offal of the West, Harvey Houses were known pro their immaculate tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be well-groomed, spotless and ironed. If they got rude during a scrape by, they were expected to exchange uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was sod on dismissal. Harvey himself would for surprise inspections and closely act a white glove test.

Harvey’s chefs were also the best. When Fred Harvey traveled, he would sample to allure away the chef anytime he had a excellent meal. He paid his people expressively and believed in the pre-eminent distinction ingredients. The chefs had the officialdom to manufacture their own menus and pay handsomely for supplies and produce. Not unequal to prodigious restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the in the first place ‚lite and the most excellently rig out of meat and unpolluted vegetables. Hence, they had the skills to provide diners with first class meals.

Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Many women started evasion as a waitress, became head waitress, and some unruffled became managers. Another in the pipeline he emphasized veneration and respectability was in the prestige he chose for his minister to staff. His girls were at no time referred to as waitresses. Rather, they were known via and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Girl meant poise, veneration, and independence.

Fred Harvey invented the bond restaurant, but more importantly, he and his girls civilized the West. Not solely did they offer a usefulness to the travelers and the communities totally their restaurants and absolute air, they became the paradigm of comity and dining. Many Harvey girls did find alliance and adventure. Multifarious had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would be undergoing been hopeless back East. Some paid for 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 Data Recovery & Computer Backup.

When Fred Harvey died in 1901, his empire included 15 hotels, 47 restaurants, and 30 railroad dining cars. At its tiptop, the Harvey House restaurants were the most successful in the country, with 100 locations, and provided the Santa Fe Railroad with the marketing tool and support to evolve into the largest traveller discipline band in the Connected States. During both Fraternity Wars, the Harvey Descendants was contributory in providing meals to the troops being moved across the provinces on trains. But the Wright brothers, the automobile, and the Weighty Gloom led to the demise of the empire. Fine dining and urbanity in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.