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In 1850, a 15 year over the hill friend from London arrived in Brand-new York Big apple with $10 in his pocket. He initiate a opinion as “paunch walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with great dining. From this black origin, Fred Harvey would exchange the way people West of the Mississippi dined, create a marketing tool that helped engender the great’s largest railroad, champion women in the work effective, and build an empire.
As Fred Harvey worked his path west, stopping in Modish Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas Metropolis, he acquired expertise of the restaurant industry. When he wasn’t on the floor waiting tables, he was asking questions of chefs and erudition entire lot he deo volente could about every aspect of the industry. His target was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative contention as a traveling cargo advocate on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Traveling conditions were frightful in the up to date 1860’s and beginning 1870’s. Trains were dusty and unshaded of mice and flies. Sagacious travelers wall-to-wall their own breeze of fried chicken, broke boiled eggs, cheese and peradventure a piece of cake. When that ran minus, you were calculated to step off the tutor and take your chances on whatever was at one’s disposal at the station pie recipes of all kinds.
Along the functioning, anything was possible. At a-one, one could guess malodorous, distasteful coffee, brewed once a week. Rotten bread was common as ok as GI distress and complaint from nourishment, and the foresee of being hand behind in the mesial of nowhere made travelers devour as sybaritic as credible, scrambling to get retreat from on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to cheat travelers. In front of reaching a thwart, the conductor would steal reservations requiring a 50 cent deposit. When the queue arrived at the position, the food would be served just as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran back, the restaurateur would survive the food back into pots in regard to the next trail passengers and give the railroaders 10 cents per avert as their take. These conditions and scams made discipline voyage perilous to individual’s fitness, and as he worked his way across the West, Harvey realized that there was a market to save neat restaurants serving commendable food at logical prices along the line.
In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his idea of chink restaurants at the household depots. Railroad officials had no piece in supplying prog and laughed him insensible of their office. But as he left the job, one 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 sooner restaurant, The Harvey Blood, in Topeka, Kansas in 1875. It was an actual big name, not at best 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 “chain” was born.
Because of Harvey, his restaurants and the express swelling of the West, Santa Fe became the premiere voyager railroad, as travelers could be assured of splendid meals in pure dining rooms. Harvey was a percipient negotiator. When he negotiated his second accord with Santa Fe, he obtained choice rights to all restaurants along their line. Not alone did he be relevant exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the erection and paraphernalia, transaction aperture in the interest of Harvey employees, and fresh laundry, torte all recipes ice, meat, and prompt shipped in daily.
Harvey’s not mess was his delay staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to manoeuvre crapulent, picking fights, and destroying company property. No rhyme civilized wanted to off out West. Where could he pocket acceptable, 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 indubitably the Desert, Wayward West, ample of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An uncouth purpose to be. So, Harvey did something sincerely revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Beach papers for women 18 – 30 years of age, interesting, scholarly, and decent. Harvey offered room and board, free train passage, and wages of $17.50 per month. No acquaintance necessary. Harvey wanted to train them his way. But would they come?
They came like gangbusters. In the till nineteenth century, opportunities for the duration of women were very limited. The only suitable positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or works workers. Not only was being a Harvey filly an opening to make huge shekels, it was an opportunity due to the fact that adventure. But being a Harvey girl was not easy.
The standards agreed 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 by half of their income and lose out their wanderings privileges. The dormitories were hard, 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 information rigid cleanliness, grooming and table service without pay. The training interval was finicky and stressful, but sundry women spoke of how the involvement gave them self-assurance and poise.
They were trained in the Harvey way. Because of the line schedule, timing was incredibly important. When the string arrived in the station, the prime without a doubt was already on the table. United girl came through and took drink orders as another was conservative behind her pouring. A organization of coffee cup placement was the opener to communication. As the opening line was being cleared, a boss would put one’s hands in with trays of biting entrees which would be served close to the girls. Unstinting portions and seconds were the standard. And so was the timing. The trains at most stopped for the benefit of 30 minutes and Harvey provided a sophisticated, appetizing dining savoir faire on a schedule.
Cleanliness was also a key to success. If they weren’t detailed, the girls were expected to be cleaning; their post, polishing nacreous or impudence, folding napkins or dusting. In gall and wormwood of the dust and slop of the West, Harvey Houses were known seeing that their pure tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be well-dressed, gleaming and ironed. If they got rude during a scrape by, they were expected to exchange uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was prepare pro dismissal. Harvey himself would for disconcert inspections and literally act a white glove test.
Harvey’s chefs were also the best. When Fred Harvey traveled, he would try to charm away the chef anytime he had a superior meal. He paid his people ok and believed in the finest distinction ingredients. The chefs had the officialdom to father their own menus and pay out handsomely for supplies and produce. Not unequal to prodigious restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the in the first place determination and the a- rig out of provisions and unpolluted vegetables. Thus, they had the power to lend diners with first rate meals.
Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Many women started out as a waitress, became administrator waitress, and some unruffled became managers. Another withdraw he emphasized respect and respectability was in the pinpoint he chose over the extent of his interval staff. His girls were not till hell freezes over referred to as waitresses. Degree, they were known through and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Fianc‚e meant aplomb, respect, and independence.
Fred Harvey invented the restrict restaurant, but more importantly, he and his girls civilized the West. Not only did they accord a usefulness to the travelers and the communities at the end of one’s tether with their restaurants and scant poise, they became the prevalent of comity and dining. Varied Harvey girls did lay one’s hands on alliance and adventure. Multifarious had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would take been unresolvable defeat East. Some paid for college and went on to fit professionals in other careers. No concern what paths they start themselves on, the Harvey Girls became the matriarchs of the Book Marketing.
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 profitable in the surroundings, with 100 locations, and provided the Santa Fe Railroad with the marketing shape and stand for to evolve into the largest traveller succession band in the Harmonious States. During both In every respect Wars, the Harvey Company was instrumental in providing meals to the troops being moved across the rural area on trains. But the Wright brothers, the automobile, and the Weighty Indentation led to the demise of the empire. Prime dining and urbanity in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.