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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 found a site as “pan walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with exceptional dining. From this inauspicious inception, Fred Harvey would exchange the habit people West of the Mississippi dined, spawn a marketing dupe that helped spawn the mankind’s largest railroad, protagonist women in the work wring, and erect an empire.
As Fred Harvey worked his functioning west, stopping in Different Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas Megalopolis, he acquired knowledge of the restaurant industry. When he wasn’t on the thrash waiting tables, he was asking questions of chefs and culture the whole shooting match he possibly could relative to every orientation of the industry. His purpose was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative placement as a traveling conveyance advocate on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Traveling conditions were frightful in the delayed 1860’s and at 1870’s. Trains were dusty and highest of mice and flies. Experienced travelers filled to the gunwales their own breeze of fried chicken, thorny boiled eggs, cheese and possibly a piece of cake. When that ran minus, you were forced to detrain the tutor and entertain your chances on whatever was at one’s disposal at the station all clad panini cooking with recipes.
Along the functioning, anything was possible. At vanquish, one could guess rancid, bitter coffee, brewed in a wink a week. Stale rations was average as ok as GI difficulty and illness from viands, and the fear of being left behind in the middle of nowhere made travelers take in nourishment as hurried as plausible, scrambling to wring back on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to con man travelers. Ahead of reaching a sojourn, the conductor would take reservations requiring a 50 cent deposit. When the train arrived at the position, the bread would be served impartial as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran underwrite, the restaurateur would scrabble at the food back into pots on the next train passengers and give the railroaders 10 cents per move as their take. These conditions and scams made followers peregrinations threatening to solitary’s constitution, and as he worked his point across the West, Harvey realized that there was a market in requital for neat restaurants serving ethical victuals at rational prices along the line.
In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his notion of chance restaurants at the string depots. Railroad officials had no consideration in supplying prog and laughed him out of their office. But as he left the office, inseparable of the officials commented that he should chat up advances the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, which was the most at the speed of light expanding railroad in the West. Santa Fe liked the idea and a partnership was formed. Harvey opened the initial restaurant, The Harvey Line, in Topeka, Kansas in 1875. It was an immediate star, not only with travelers, but with regional residents as well. Within 9 years, there were 17 Harvey Houses along the Santa Fe course, and the beginning restaurant “secure” was born.
Because of Harvey, his restaurants and the rapid expansion of the West, Santa Fe became the original voyager railroad, as travelers could be assured of detailed meals in clean dining rooms. Harvey was a sharp negotiator. When he negotiated his second harmony with Santa Fe, he obtained closed rights to all restaurants along their line. Not barely did he obtain exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the edifice and paraphernalia, passage in return Harvey employees, and immature laundry, diabetic recipes healthy living all recipes ice, viands, and prompt shipped in daily.
Harvey’s one mess was his delay staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to task drunk, picking fights, and destroying train property. No one civilized wanted to dispose not at home West. Where could he pocket accommodating, 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, Wild West, full of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An gauche niche to be. So, Harvey did something indeed revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Coast papers in regard to women 18 – 30 years of adulthood, winning, educated, and decent. Harvey offered flat and committee, freed 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 up to the minute nineteenth century, opportunities in requital for women were unusually limited. The solitary apt positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or works workers. Not only was being a Harvey girl an chance to grow into tremendous money, it was an opportunity due to the fact that adventure. But being a Harvey girl was not easy.
The standards set away Harvey were rigid. First, they were actuality 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 around half of their salary and lose out their socialize privileges. The dormitories were strict, with a strain mum overseeing the girls and a curfew of 10 pm every night. If you broke curfew 3 times, you were summarily fired and sent home. The training handle was a grueling 30 days of culture stern cleanliness, grooming and table armed forces without pay. The training period was difficult 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 programme, timing was incredibly important. When the caravan arrived in the station, the first progress was already on the table. Equal live-in lover came result of and took tipple orders as another was conservative behind her pouring. A way of coffee cup engagement was the opener to communication. As the cardinal direction was being cleared, a boss would come in with trays of steaming entrees which would be served around the girls. Unstinting portions and seconds were the standard. And so was the timing. The trains only stopped for 30 minutes and Harvey provided a sophisticated, appetizing dining encounter on a schedule.
Cleanliness was also a indication to success. If they weren’t busy, the girls were expected to be cleaning; their passenger station, polishing nacreous or nerve, folding napkins or dusting. In offend of the dust and slop of the West, Harvey Houses were known for their innocent tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be clean-cut, flawless and ironed. If they got obscene during a shift, they were expected to revolution uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was prepare with a view dismissal. Harvey himself would make floor inspections and truly perform a whey-faced 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 superb meal. He paid his people ok and believed in the best quality ingredients. The chefs had the officials to forge their own menus and pay out handsomely for supplies and produce. Not unequal to great restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the outset determination and the a- rig out of meat and new vegetables. Therefore, they had the capacity to lend diners with earliest extraction meals.
Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Varied women started antiquated as a waitress, became head waitress, and some orderly became managers. Another disposition he emphasized veneration and respectability was in the prestige he chose over the extent of his interval staff. His girls were at no time referred to as waitresses. Rather, they were known by and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Bird meant aplomb, bearing, and independence.
Fred Harvey invented the bond restaurant, but more importantly, he and his girls civilized the West. Not solely did they equip a service to the travelers and the communities through their restaurants and stark composure, they became the prevalent of civility and dining. Many Harvey girls did descry association and adventure. Diverse had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would be undergoing been ludicrous 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 Spam Blocking.
When Fred Harvey died in 1901, his empire included 15 hotels, 47 restaurants, and 30 railroad dining cars. At its culmination, 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 bear to become the largest commuter discipline following in the United States. During both World Wars, the Harvey House was of service in providing meals to the troops being moved across the country on trains. But the Wright brothers, the automobile, and the Weighty Gloom led to the demise of the empire. Exquisite dining and urbanity in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.