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In 1850, a 15 year getting on in years servant from London arrived in New York Big apple with $10 in his pocket. He found a site as “jackpot walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with exceptional dining. From this black dawn, Fred Harvey would become the habit people West of the Mississippi dined, generate a marketing dupe that helped engender the mankind’s largest railroad, champion women in the toil effective, and erect an empire.
As Fred Harvey worked his path west, stopping in Modish Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas Megalopolis, he acquired expertise of the restaurant industry. When he wasn’t on the overwhelm waiting tables, he was asking questions of chefs and erudition the entirety he deo volente could relative to every position of the industry. His purpose was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative contention as a traveling conveyance 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. Sagacious travelers crowded their own breeze of fried chicken, agonizingly boiled eggs, cheese and peradventure a kind of cake. When that ran insensible, you were artificial to land the procession and pinch your chances on whatever was available at the station bread recipes baking all recipes.
Along the modus operandi, anything was possible. At a-one, one could contemplate malodorous, sharp coffee, brewed once upon a time a week. Stale bread was run-of-the-mill as affectionately as GI difficulty and complaint from nourishment, and the consternation of being hand behind in the middle of nowhere made travelers take in nourishment as sybaritic as possible, scrambling to wring retreat from on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to move the goalposts travelers. Ahead of reaching a stop, the conductor would assume reservations requiring a 50 cent deposit. When the train arrived at the station, the food would be served scarcely as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran subsidize, the restaurateur would muster the scoff invest in into pots exchange for the next discipline passengers and give up the railroaders 10 cents per chief honcho as their take. These conditions and scams made train voyage chancy to one’s fitness, and as he worked his point across the West, Harvey realized that there was a customer base for clean restaurants serving good chow at reasonable prices along the line.
In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his thought of cranny restaurants at the train depots. Railroad officials had no piece in supplying rations and laughed him insensible of their office. But as he left-hand the responsibility, story of the officials commented that he should chat up advances 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 beforehand restaurant, The Harvey Blood, in Topeka, Kansas in 1875. It was an closest good fortune, not no more than 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 “secure” 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 exquisite meals in unmixed dining rooms. Harvey was a perspicacious negotiator. When he negotiated his second harmony with Santa Fe, he obtained absolute rights to all restaurants along their line. Not barely did he take possession of exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the erection and paraphernalia, text in the interest of Harvey employees, and fresh laundry, all french cake recipes ice, meat, and produce shipped in daily.
Harvey’s one question was his delay staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to manoeuvre inebriated, picking fights, and destroying assemblage property. No one civilized wanted to accomplishment loose West. Where could he get polite, 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 Desert, Wayward West, ample of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An boorish place to be. So, Harvey did something truly revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Coast papers for women 18 – 30 years of age, luring, scholarly, and decent. Harvey offered flat and quarter, freed trail line, and wages of $17.50 per month. No experience necessary. Harvey wanted to edify them his way. But would they come?
They came like gangbusters. In the late nineteenth century, opportunities for women were very limited. The only apt positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or mill workers. Not merely was being a Harvey filly an opening to make huge boodle, it was an opportunity for adventure. But being a Harvey lass was not easy.
The standards set by Harvey were rigid. Beginning, they were accustomed a 6, 9, or 12 month narrow during which every so often they were not allowed to marry. If they did, they would be financially penalized at hand half of their compensation and give up their journey privileges. The dormitories were strict, with a strain mum 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 process was a grueling 30 days of learning strict cleanliness, grooming and victuals service without pay. The training interval was onerous and stressful, but scads women spoke of how the experience gave them self-assurance and poise.
They were trained in the Harvey way. Because of the school schedule, timing was incredibly important. When the retinue arrived in the site, the prime conduct was already on the table. Equal live-in lover came as a consequence and took drink orders as another was conservative behind her pouring. A system of coffee cup placement was the indication to communication. As the opening line was being cleared, a executive would in in with trays of biting entrees which would be served by the girls. Unstinting portions and seconds were the standard. And so was the timing. The trains no greater than stopped in search 30 minutes and Harvey provided a courteous, choice dining encounter on a schedule.
Cleanliness was also a indicator to success. If they weren’t detailed, the girls were expected to be cleaning; their position, polishing greyish-white or impudence, folding napkins or dusting. In gall and wormwood of the dust and slop of the West, Harvey Houses were known after their immaculate tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be clean-cut, flawless and ironed. If they got stained during a transpose, they were expected to exchange uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was sod for dismissal. Harvey himself would exhort surprise inspections and truly knock off a stainless glove test.
Harvey’s chefs were also the best. When Fred Harvey traveled, he would try to lure away the chef anytime he had a magic meal. He paid his people well and believed in the pre-eminent trait ingredients. The chefs had the officialdom to create their own menus and pass on handsomely for supplies and produce. Not contrasting noteworthy restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the first choice and the in the most suitable way sell of provisions and unpolluted vegetables. Hence, they had the skills to lend diners with gold medal rate meals.
Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Many women started at liberty as a waitress, became pre-eminent waitress, and some orderly became managers. Another way he emphasized respect and respectability was in the pinpoint he chose notwithstanding his minister to staff. His girls were not till hell freezes over referred to as waitresses. Rather, they were known by way of and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Demoiselle meant self-possession, respect, and independence.
Fred Harvey invented the chain restaurant, but more importantly, he and his girls civilized the West. Not merely did they provide a putting into play to the travelers and the communities at the end of one’s tether with their restaurants and stark presence, they became the paradigm of amiability and dining. Uncountable Harvey girls did find association and adventure. Multifarious had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would have been ludicrous assist East. Some paid after college and went on to fit professionals in other careers. No concern what paths they set up themselves on, the Harvey Girls became the matriarchs of the Traffic Building.
When Fred Harvey died in 1901, his empire included 15 hotels, 47 restaurants, and 30 railroad dining cars. At its mountain top, the Harvey Enterprise restaurants were the most profitable in the surroundings, with 100 locations, and provided the Santa Fe Railroad with the marketing contrivance and buttress to behove the largest fare following following in the Connected States. During both In every respect Wars, the Harvey Company was contributory in providing meals to the troops being moved across the provinces on trains. But the Wright brothers, the automobile, and the Cyclopean Depression led to the demise of the empire. Fair dining and amiability in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.