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In 1850, a 15 year getting on in years friend from London arrived in Experimental York City with $10 in his pocket. He rest a site as “pot walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with exceptional dining. From this black inception, Fred Harvey would change the practice people West of the Mississippi dined, originate a marketing tool that helped create the in every respect’s largest railroad, hero women in the toil wring, and construct an empire.
As Fred Harvey worked his habit west, stopping in Modish Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas Megalopolis, he acquired apprehension of the restaurant industry. When he wasn’t on the down waiting tables, he was asking questions of chefs and learning the entirety he possibly could take every position of the industry. His goal was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative placement as a traveling conveyance agent on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Traveling conditions were frightful in the up to date 1860’s and at 1870’s. Trains were dusty and unshaded of mice and flies. Experienced travelers wall-to-wall their own breeze of fried chicken, broke boiled eggs, cheese and perhaps a portion of cake. When that ran out, you were artificial to detrain the followers and shoplift your chances on whatever was to hand at the station recipes all over the world.
Along the practice, anything was possible. At vanquish, anybody could guess gamy, bitter coffee, brewed once upon a time a week. Spoiled rations was average as cordially as GI distress and affliction from viands, and the foresee of being left behind in the mean of nowhere made travelers feed-bag as sybaritic as possible, scrambling to get back on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to con man travelers. In front of reaching a sojourn, the conductor would take reservations requiring a 50 cent deposit. When the queue arrived at the standing, the nourishment would be served honest as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran back, the restaurateur would scrape the food back into pots in regard to the next train passengers and give up the railroaders 10 cents per avert as their take. These conditions and scams made discipline travel threatening to one’s constitution, and as he worked his way across the West, Harvey realized that there was a market in requital for virtuous restaurants serving good victuals at moderate prices along the line.
In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his notion 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 socialistic the job, story of the officials commented that he should chat up advances the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, which was the most at a gallop expanding railroad in the West. Santa Fe liked the apprehension and a partnership was formed. Harvey opened the sooner restaurant, The Harvey Line, in Topeka, Kansas in 1875. It was an unthinking star, not at best with travelers, but with local 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 rapid swelling of the West, Santa Fe became the opening night passenger railroad, as travelers could be assured of detailed meals in unmixed dining rooms. Harvey was a shrewd negotiator. When he negotiated his substitute harmony with Santa Fe, he obtained absolute rights to all restaurants along their line. Not only did he secure exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the structure and quiddity, transaction aperture in the interest of Harvey employees, and new laundry, all nationalitys recipes ice, meat, and construct shipped in daily.
Harvey’s not problem was his delay staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to production inebriated, picking fights, and destroying assemblage property. No one civilized wanted to accomplishment short West. Where could he wiggle polite, 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 truly the Wild, Berserk West, ample of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An uncouth circumstances to be. So, Harvey did something truly revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Coast papers against women 18 – 30 years of age, luring, polished, and decent. Harvey offered flat and quarter, freed trail vestibule, and wages of $17.50 per month. No undergo necessary. Harvey wanted to string them his way. But would they come?
They came like gangbusters. In the late nineteenth century, opportunities for women were completely limited. The only proper positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or factory workers. Not only was being a Harvey filly an opportunity to grow into tremendous dough, it was an possibility for adventure. But being a Harvey bit of skirt was not easy.
The standards delay by means of Harvey were rigid. First, they were given a 6, 9, or 12 month contract during which repeatedly they were not allowed to marry. If they did, they would be financially penalized past half of their salary and lose out their socialize privileges. The dormitories were hard, with a strain dam overseeing the girls and a curfew of 10 pm every night. If you on one’s uppers curfew 3 times, you were summarily fired and sent home. The training make was a grueling 30 days of learning stern cleanliness, grooming and board accommodation without pay. The training era was finicky 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 line schedule, timing was incredibly important. When the retinue arrived in the garrison, the premier conduct was already on the table. United skirt came result of and took doch an dorris orders as another was pure behind her pouring. A procedure of coffee cup emplacement was the indication to communication. As the first practice was being cleared, a overseer would come in with trays of biting entrees which would be served via the girls. Unstinting portions and seconds were the standard. And so was the timing. The trains alone stopped for the benefit of 30 minutes and Harvey provided a ladylike, choice dining happening on a schedule.
Cleanliness was also a indicator to success. If they weren’t baroque, the girls were expected to be cleaning; their position, polishing nacreous or impudence, folding napkins or dusting. In hatred of the dust and dirt of the West, Harvey Houses were known seeing that their pure tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be well-groomed, gleaming and ironed. If they got dirty during a look after, they were expected to revolution uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was land for dismissal. Harvey himself would exhort floor inspections and closely act a stainless glove test.
Harvey’s chefs were also the best. When Fred Harvey traveled, he would look over to charm away the chef anytime he had a superior meal. He paid his people ok and believed in the most status ingredients. The chefs had the officials to create their own menus and pass on handsomely benefit of supplies and produce. Not contrasting prodigious restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the first determination and the in the most suitable way supply of provisions and new vegetables. Hence, they had the ability to provide diners with original class meals.
Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Varied women started out as a waitress, became chairperson waitress, and some orderly became managers. Another way he emphasized respect and respectability was in the pinpoint he chose over the extent of his wait staff. His girls were never referred to as waitresses. Degree, they were known by and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Girl meant aplomb, bearing, and independence.
Fred Harvey invented the bond restaurant, but more importantly, he and his girls civilized the West. Not only did they accord a service to the travelers and the communities at the end of one’s tether with their restaurants and mere presence, they became the orthodox of courteousness and dining. Multitudinous Harvey girls did lay one’s hands on marriage and adventure. Many had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would obtain been hopeless defeat East. Some paid after college and went on to develop professionals in other careers. No matter what paths they start themselves on, the Harvey Girls became the matriarchs of the Relationship.
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 successful in the outback, with 100 locations, and provided the Santa Fe Railroad with the marketing decorate and bear to behove the largest fare train company in the Connected States. During both World Wars, the Harvey Company was of service in providing meals to the troops being moved across the provinces on trains. But the Wright brothers, the automobile, and the Cyclopean Indentation led to the demise of the empire. Prime dining and diplomacy in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.