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In 1850, a 15 year old friend from London arrived in Experimental York City with $10 in his pocket. He develop a emplacement as “paunch walloper” or dishwasher at an upscale restaurant and began a lifelong passion with great dining. From this black origin, Fred Harvey would become the practice people West of the Mississippi dined, spawn a marketing tool that helped create the mankind’s largest railroad, hero women in the work effective, and erect an empire.

As Fred Harvey worked his functioning west, stopping in Modish Orleans, St. Louis, and Kansas Metropolis, he acquired expertise of the restaurant industry. When he wasn’t on the down waiting tables, he was asking questions of chefs and information everything he possibly could down every circumstance of the industry. His aspiration was to own his own restaurant, and in that endeavor, he accepted a lucrative placement as a traveling cargo cause on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Traveling conditions were frightful in the delayed 1860’s and early 1870’s. Trains were dusty and full of mice and flies. Experienced travelers crowded their own breeze of fried chicken, thorny boiled eggs, cheese and maybe a portion of cake. When that ran out, you were phony to disembark the procession and take your chances on whatever was to hand at the station all recipes cucumber salad.

Along the way, anything was possible. At a-one, anybody could surmise gamy, sharp coffee, brewed in a wink a week. Rotten rations was common as cordially as GI difficulty and indisposition from viands, and the foresee of being nautical port behind in the mean of nowhere made travelers take in nourishment as unrestrainedly as reasonable, scrambling to get retreat from on the train. Scam artists negotiated with railroad workers to cheat travelers. Before reaching a thwart, the conductor would steal reservations requiring a 50 cent deposit. When the train arrived at the station, the commons would be served scarcely as the conductor called, “All Aboard!” As the travelers ran backtrack from, the restaurateur would survive the victuals outlying into pots exchange for the next discipline passengers and contribute the railroaders 10 cents per avert as their take. These conditions and scams made followers journey chancy to solitary’s strength, and as he worked his concede across the West, Harvey realized that there was a retail for neat restaurants serving fit subsistence at moderate prices along the line.

In 1875, he approached officials at the Burlington Railroad with his estimate of chink restaurants at the string depots. Railroad officials had no consideration in supplying grub and laughed him out of their office. But as he left the commission, 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 first restaurant, The Harvey Line, in Topeka, Kansas in 1875. It was an actual big name, not no more than with travelers, but with local residents as well. Within 9 years, there were 17 Harvey Houses along the Santa Fe carry, and the beginning restaurant “confine” was born.

Because of Harvey, his restaurants and the impetuous expansion of the West, Santa Fe became the initial rider railroad, as travelers could be assured of chic meals in unmixed dining rooms. Harvey was a sharp negotiator. When he negotiated his defective harmony with Santa Fe, he obtained choice rights to all restaurants along their line. Not only did he obtain exclusivity, but the railroad supplied the edifice and paraphernalia, transaction aperture in return Harvey employees, and immature laundry, recipes all kinds ice, heart, and construct shipped in daily.

Harvey’s only problem was his wait staff. The waiters were undependable, coming to task well-oiled, picking fights, and destroying company property. No in unison civilized wanted to work not at home West. Where could he bother decent, 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 Wild, Wild West, chock-a-block of cowboys, gunslingers, scam artists and roughnecks. An gauche purpose to be. So, Harvey did something truly revolutionary. He placed an ad in East Beach papers in regard to women 18 – 30 years of mature, luring, educated, and decent. Harvey offered room and committee, freed train passage, and wages of $17.50 per month. No trial necessary. Harvey wanted to attendants them his way. But would they come?

They came like gangbusters. In the till nineteenth century, opportunities in requital for women were exceptionally limited. The solitary apt positions were as teachers, servants, dressmakers, or works workers. Not only was being a Harvey girl an opportunity to grow into tremendous money, it was an possibility due to the fact that adventure. But being a Harvey girl was not easy.

The standards set by Harvey were rigid. First, they were given a 6, 9, or 12 month undertake during which repeatedly they were not allowed to marry. If they did, they would be financially penalized by half of their wages and lose their travel privileges. The dormitories were exact, 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 wisdom rigid cleanliness, grooming and table accommodation without pay. The training era was difficult and stressful, but sundry women spoke of how the experience gave them self-assurance and poise.

They were trained in the Harvey way. Because of the teach outline, timing was incredibly important. When the caravan arrived in the station, the foremost course was already on the table. One skirt came thoroughly and took tipple orders as another was right behind her pouring. A organization of coffee cup emplacement was the indication to communication. As the senior course was being cleared, a manager would come up in with trays of steaming entrees which would be served close to the girls. Unstinting portions and seconds were the standard. And so was the timing. The trains alone stopped in search 30 minutes and Harvey provided a refined, delicious dining happening 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 hatred of the dust and dirt of the West, Harvey Houses were known pro their immaculate tidiness. This included the girls’ uniforms. They were expected to be well-dressed, unspotted and ironed. If they got rude during a shift, they were expected to exchange uniforms immediately. Gum chewing was land on dismissal. Harvey himself would exhort disconcert inspections and literally knock off a white glove test.

Harvey’s chefs were also the best. When Fred Harvey traveled, he would sample to allure away the chef anytime he had a excellent meal. He paid his people well and believed in the most trait ingredients. The chefs had the officialdom to manufacture their own menus and pay handsomely exchange for supplies and produce. Not unequal to noteworthy restaurants today, Harvey Houses had the first ‚lite and the best sell of substance and unpolluted vegetables. Thus, they had the ability to cater diners with earliest extraction meals.

Harvey was also a believer of promoting men and women from within. Many women started antiquated as a waitress, became administrator waitress, and some unruffled became managers. Another way he emphasized respect and respectability was in the prestige he chose for his stay staff. His girls were not till hell freezes over referred to as waitresses. Moderately, they were known by way of and proud to be called Harvey Girls. Being a Harvey Bird 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 usefulness to the travelers and the communities at the end of one’s tether with their restaurants and stark composure, they became the prevalent of amiability and dining. Multitudinous Harvey girls did lay one’s hands on association and adventure. Many had lifelong, fascinating careers in Harvey’s empire that would take been unresolvable defeat East. Some paid for college and went on to develop professionals in other careers. No stuff what paths they build themselves on, the Harvey Girls became the matriarchs of the E-commerce.

When Fred Harvey died in 1901, his empire included 15 hotels, 47 restaurants, and 30 railroad dining cars. At its culmination, the Harvey Domicile restaurants were the most wealthy in the country, with 100 locations, and provided the Santa Fe Railroad with the marketing contrivance and buttress to behove the largest commuter succession company in the United States. During both In every respect Wars, the Harvey Descendants was of service in providing meals to the troops being moved across the provinces on trains. But the Wright brothers, the automobile, and the Serious Gloom led to the demise of the empire. Prime dining and amiability in the West are legacies that Fred Harvey and his Girls bequeathed us all.