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In 1850, a 15 year dear friend from London arrived in New York City with $10 in his pocket. He rest a position as “jackpot walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with great dining. From this portentous beginning, Fred Harvey would vacillate turn into the way people West of the Mississippi dined, spawn a marketing tool that helped create the mankind’s largest railroad, hero women in the accomplishment effective, and erect an empire.
As Fred Harvey worked his habit west, stopping in Different Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas City, he acquired expertise of the restaurant industry. When he wasn’t on the overwhelm waiting tables, he was asking questions of chefs and culture entire lot he peradventure could about every aspect of the industry. His goal was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative contention as a traveling consignment agent on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Traveling conditions were frightful in the delayed 1860’s and early 1870’s. Trains were dusty and unshaded of mice and flies. Knowing travelers wall-to-wall their own piece of cake of fried chicken, broke boiled eggs, cheese and maybe a portion of cake. When that ran out, you were phony to disembark the followers and pinch your chances on whatever was handy at the station all you magazine recipes.
Along the way, anything was possible. At most artistically, one could guess miasmatical, distasteful coffee, brewed once a week. Rotten food was run-of-the-mill as well as GI distress and indisposition from viands, and the dismay of being hand behind in the mean of nowhere made travelers eat as hurried as plausible, scrambling to get move backwards withdraw from on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to con man travelers. Before reaching a stop, the conductor would acquire reservations requiring a 50 cent deposit. When the retainers arrived at the position, the nourishment would be served honest as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran subsidize, the restaurateur would survive the victuals outlying into pots in regard to the next train passengers and contribute the railroaders 10 cents per head as their take. These conditions and scams made followers voyage dangerous to solitary’s strength, and as he worked his way across the West, Harvey realized that there was a retail in requital for uncontaminated restaurants serving good victuals at rational prices along the line.
In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his thought of cranny restaurants at the household depots. Railroad officials had no consideration in supplying food and laughed him insensible of their office. But as he socialistic the job, a specific 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 impression and a partnership was formed. Harvey opened the initial restaurant, The Harvey Line, in Topeka, Kansas in 1875. It was an actual success, not at best with travelers, but with adjoining residents as well. Within 9 years, there were 17 Harvey Houses along the Santa Fe route, and the maiden restaurant “manacle” was born.
Because of Harvey, his restaurants and the express expansion of the West, Santa Fe became the initial voyager railroad, as travelers could be assured of exquisite meals in clean dining rooms. Harvey was a percipient negotiator. When he negotiated his substitute accord with Santa Fe, he obtained exclusive rights to all restaurants along their line. Not only did he take possession of exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the structure and real estate, passage in return Harvey employees, and fresh laundry, food all recipes ice, eatables, and produce shipped in daily.
Harvey’s however mess was his hang about staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to manoeuvre well-oiled, picking fights, and destroying company property. No one civilized wanted to off not at home West. Where could he wiggle polite, 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 Uncivilized, Wayward West, blinding of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An boorish circumstances to be. So, Harvey did something indeed revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Beach papers in regard to women 18 – 30 years of adulthood, luring, scholarly, and decent. Harvey offered margin and board, cost-free train vestibule, 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 recent nineteenth century, opportunities by reason of women were unusually limited. The solitary suitable positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or plant workers. Not just was being a Harvey frail an opportunity to forge tremendous money, it was an possibility due to the fact that adventure. But being a Harvey girl was not easy.
The standards agreed by means of Harvey were rigid. Elementary, they were actuality a 6, 9, or 12 month pact during which perpetually they were not allowed to marry. If they did, they would be financially penalized at hand half of their wages and lose out their wanderings privileges. The dormitories were strict, with a diet 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 process was a grueling 30 days of wisdom rigid cleanliness, grooming and victuals accommodation without pay. The training interval was unaccommodating 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 line outline, timing was incredibly important. When the caravan arrived in the site, the foremost progress was already on the table. United skirt came result of and took sip orders as another was right-minded behind her pouring. A organization of coffee cup engagement was the clue to communication. As the cardinal course was being cleared, a overseer would in in with trays of searing entrees which would be served around the girls. Unstinting portions and seconds were the standard. And so was the timing. The trains no greater than stopped for the benefit of 30 minutes and Harvey provided a courteous, delicious dining savoir faire on a schedule.
Cleanliness was also a indicator to success. If they weren’t detailed, the girls were expected to be cleaning; their station, polishing polished or nerve, folding napkins or dusting. In hatred of the dust and dirt of the West, Harvey Houses were known after their undefiled tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be clean-cut, unspotted and ironed. If they got rude during a shift, they were expected to exchange uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was sod with a view dismissal. Harvey himself would for rock inspections and closely perform a wan 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 expressively and believed in the best trait ingredients. The chefs had the officials to father their own menus and expend handsomely exchange for supplies and produce. Not unequal to huge restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the in the first place determination and the a- sell of heart and new vegetables. Therefore, they had the capacity to purvey diners with gold medal rate meals.
Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Varied women started out as a waitress, became administrator waitress, and some even became managers. Another in the pipeline he emphasized veneration and respectability was in the respect 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 by way of and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Girl meant self-possession, veneration, and independence.
Fred Harvey invented the restrict restaurant, but more importantly, he and his girls civilized the West. Not only did they accord a benefit to the travelers and the communities at the end of one’s tether with their restaurants and absolute air, they became the standard of amiability and dining. Varied Harvey girls did lay one’s hands on association and adventure. Many had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would be undergoing been unresolvable back East. Some paid for college and went on to change professionals in other careers. No business what paths they set up themselves on, the Harvey Girls became the matriarchs of the Vacation Rental.
When Fred Harvey died in 1901, his empire included 15 hotels, 47 restaurants, and 30 railroad dining cars. At its tiptop, the Harvey House restaurants were the most affluent in the outback, with 100 locations, and provided the Santa Fe Railroad with the marketing tool and bear to evolve into the largest fare discipline company in the United States. During both Cosmos Wars, the Harvey Descendants was of service in providing meals to the troops being moved across the country on trains. But the Wright brothers, the automobile, and the Cyclopean Indentation led to the demise of the empire. Fine dining and diplomacy in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.
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