By 1880 the ATS&F Railroad had laid tracks from Kansas City to California- and people and products were starting to move through the still untamed west. Food along the way, however, was a spotty proposition, and the railroad was faced with a dilemma. Cooks were hard to keep employed, and waiters were hard to find. Thats when Fred Harvey, who had emigrated from England to the US at age 15 and got into the restaurant, and then the train business- saw an opportunity. He went to the offices of the Atcheson, Yopeka, & Santa Fe Railroad and offered them a plan. If the railroads would give him the dining cars and let him upgrade the stops every hundred miles or so- he (Harvey) would provide first class food services. It was a win-win. But Harvey didn't stop tghere. He placed ads in central US newspapers looking for educated, proper young ladies who were willing to head west with the railroads while working for a select group of upscale restaurants. Many young girls who saw no future in their lives outside of farm and domestic work lept at the opportunity- and the Harvey Girls were born.
This is their story.
Citations and Sources:
1 Setting the Standard: The Harvey Girls. Exhibition, New Mexico History Museum, 2020. https://www.nmhistorymuseum.org/exhibition/details/1950/setting-the-standard-the-fred-harvey-company-and-its-legacy.
2 Ibid.
3Ibid.
4 "Winslow Harvey Girls - Oral Histories: Lucy Delgadillo Moore, Dorothy Hunt and Janice Stewart" by Robin White, Phyllis Kachinhongva, and Michael Quinn, Grand Canyon National Park. Mar 24, 2005. https://vimeo.com/193114476.
5 "Roy and Edna Lemons - Oral History Interview" by Michael Quinn, Grand Canyon National Park. September 7, 1995, https://www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm?id=FBEC96EC-0899-4EB5-9785-A28BFE960084.
6 Lesley Polling-Kempes. The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West (Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Press, 1989), 87.
7 "Winslow Harvey Girls - Oral Histories: Lucy Delgadillo Moore, Dorothy Hunt and Janice Stewart".
8 Colleen Lucero. When I Worked for Fred Harvey: The Hopi Harvey Project. Exhibition, 2014.
9 Setting the Standard: The Harvey Girls. Exhibition.
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