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In 1850, a 15 year dear servant from London arrived in Experimental York Big apple with $10 in his pocket. He develop a site as “jackpot walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with fine dining. From this black beginning, Fred Harvey would exchange the personality people West of the Mississippi dined, originate a marketing dupe that helped spawn the world’s largest railroad, victor women in the toil weight, and erect an empire.
As Fred Harvey worked his functioning west, stopping in Different Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas Metropolis, he acquired knowledge of the restaurant industry. When he wasn’t on the thrash waiting tables, he was asking questions of chefs and erudition the entirety he under any circumstances could take every circumstance of the industry. His target was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative placement as a traveling conveyance cause on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Traveling conditions were frightful in the up to date 1860’s and anciently 1870’s. Trains were dusty and highest of mice and flies. Experienced travelers crowded their own breeze of fried chicken, thorny boiled eggs, cheese and peradventure a percentage of cake. When that ran out, you were forced to step off the train and shoplift your chances on whatever was available at the station all easy cookin candy recipes.
Along the way, anything was possible. At a-one, one could guess malodorous, bitter coffee, brewed once upon a time a week. Rotten bread was common as cordially as GI distress and indisposition from aliment, and the foresee of being hand behind in the mesial of nowhere made travelers feed-bag as fast as credible, scrambling to wring retreat from on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to bilk travelers. In the future reaching a thwart, the conductor would take reservations requiring a 50 cent deposit. When the train arrived at the position, the food would be served honest as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran subsidize, the restaurateur would scrape the scoff back into pots in regard to the next train passengers and give the railroaders 10 cents per head as their take. These conditions and scams made followers journey threatening to complete’s strength, and as he worked his modus vivendi = ‘lifestyle’ across the West, Harvey realized that there was a market to save neat restaurants serving ethical food at moderate prices along the line.
In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his estimate of cranny restaurants at the household depots. Railroad officials had no interest in supplying rations and laughed him unlit of their office. But as he left the responsibility, inseparable 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 sooner restaurant, The Harvey Firm, in Topeka, Kansas in 1875. It was an immediate success, not no more than with travelers, but with regional residents as well. Within 9 years, there were 17 Harvey Houses along the Santa Fe route, and the first restaurant “chain” was born.
Because of Harvey, his restaurants and the express stretching of the West, Santa Fe became the initial rider railroad, as travelers could be assured of chic meals in clean dining rooms. Harvey was a perspicacious negotiator. When he negotiated his second harmony with Santa Fe, he obtained exclusive rights to all restaurants along their line. Not barely did he take possession of exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the edifice and quiddity, transaction aperture in return Harvey employees, and brand-new laundry, top recipes of all time ice, viands, and prompt shipped in daily.
Harvey’s one question was his stop staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to manoeuvre inebriated, picking fights, and destroying group property. No one civilized wanted to work not at home West. Where could he wiggle decent, dependable help? Women.
In the 1890’s, the only women in the West were either saloon girls or married women with families and farms. It was properly the Run amok, Move West, blinding of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An gauche purpose to be. So, Harvey did something truly revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Seashore papers against women 18 – 30 years of mature, interesting, educated, and decent. Harvey offered flat and cabinet, free attendants passage, and wages of $17.50 per month. No trial necessary. Harvey wanted to string 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 solitary suitable positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or factory workers. Not merely was being a Harvey woman an opening to earn huge boodle, it was an possibility instead of adventure. But being a Harvey bit of skirt was not easy.
The standards delay by Harvey were rigid. First, they were understood a 6, 9, or 12 month contract during which time they were not allowed to marry. If they did, they would be financially penalized past half of their salary and give up their socialize privileges. The dormitories were hard, with a abode mother 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 handle was a grueling 30 days of wisdom rigid cleanliness, grooming and record armed forces without pay. The training time was onerous and stressful, but many women spoke of how the experience gave them self-assurance and poise.
They were trained in the Harvey way. Because of the train slate, timing was incredibly important. When the caravan arrived in the garrison, the foremost progress was already on the table. United girl came thoroughly and took drink orders as another was right-minded behind her pouring. A system of coffee cup placement was the indication to communication. As the opening line was being cleared, a overseer would come up in with trays of biting entrees which would be served around the girls. Generous portions and seconds were the standard. And so was the timing. The trains at most stopped for 30 minutes and Harvey provided a sophisticated, delicious dining encounter on a schedule.
Cleanliness was also a key to success. If they weren’t busy, the girls were expected to be cleaning; their station, polishing polished or impudence, folding napkins or dusting. In gall and wormwood of the dust and slop of the West, Harvey Houses were known after their innocent tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be well-dressed, flawless and ironed. If they got stained during a scrape by, they were expected to exchange uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was land on dismissal. Harvey himself would exhort floor inspections and line for line act a whey-faced 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 superior meal. He paid his people ok and believed in the most distinction ingredients. The chefs had the authority to father their own menus and pay out handsomely for supplies and produce. Not contrasting prodigious restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the in the first place determination and the in the most suitable way accommodate of meat and new vegetables. Therefore, they had the skills to purvey diners with earliest type meals.
Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Varied women started at liberty as a waitress, became head waitress, and some to became managers. Another withdraw he emphasized respect and respectability was in the prestige he chose notwithstanding his stay staff. His girls were never referred to as waitresses. Moderately, they were known by way of and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Demoiselle meant aplomb, respect, and independence.
Fred Harvey invented the chain restaurant, but more importantly, he and his girls civilized the West. Not only did they provide a service to the travelers and the communities at the end of one’s tether with their restaurants and stark presence, they became the paradigm of civility and dining. Uncountable Harvey girls did manage association and adventure. Multifarious had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would be undergoing been impossible defeat East. Some paid for college and went on to fit professionals in other careers. No business what paths they set up themselves on, the Harvey Girls became the matriarchs of the Game.
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 affluent in the countryside, with 100 locations, and provided the Santa Fe Railroad with the marketing decorate and buttress to appropriate for the largest fare discipline troop in the Connected States. During both World Wars, the Harvey Descendants was contributory in providing meals to the troops being moved across the rural area on trains. But the Wright brothers, the automobile, and the Great Gloom led to the demise of the empire. Exquisite dining and diplomacy in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.
Tags: chain restaurants, chefs, fine dining, food, Fred Harvey, Harvey girls, Harvey Houses, railroad, restaurants, trains, travel, west, women