[MUSIC CLIP FROM “THE HARVEY GIRLS” PLAYS]
LAUREN GILGER: That, of course, Mark, is a taste of one of my favorite musicals, “The Harvey Girls.” You’ve seen it? With Judy Garland?
MARK BRODIE: I actually have not seen it, but I have seen exhibits of the Fred Harvey Company at places like the Grand Canyon, things like that.
LAUREN GILGER: Yes, of course. That’s a good one. I’m sure a lot of folks are familiar with the Fred Harvey Company for those things and more.
And this weekend across the state, fans are gathering to celebrate its 150th anniversary with events at the Heard Museum here in Phoenix, the South Rim and the famous La Posada Hotel in Winslow.
The so-called Frediversary celebrates the date in 1876 when the Fred Harvey Company made a fateful partnership with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway — the railroad that first brought travelers from the East Coast to the Southwest. The Harvey Company became their hospitality company, running their hotels, restaurants and dining cars.
And it all, of course, coincides with the centennial this year of Route 66, which has a good stretch that runs along the Santa Fe Railroad.
Stephen Fried is author of a book all about the intersection of Fred Harvey, fine dining and the Wild West called "Appetite for America." And he is a self-proclaimed Fredhead. I spoke with him more about this anniversary and Fred Harvey’s influence on the West.
STEPHEN FRIED: Fred Harvey came to America in the 1850s, he learned the restaurant business in New York City, and he ended up in St. Louis. He lost his restaurant in St. Louis during the Civil War, and he reinvented himself in Kansas in the 1870s. And this is when railroads only went to Kansas.
And as the railroads expanded beyond Kansas all the way to California, they didn’t have dining cars in the West because they were too heavy to carry. So there had to be trackside restaurants everywhere, and in most places because they figured they would only see you once and never see you again, they were all horrible.
And so Fred Harvey decided that whatever railroad decided to have good food along their railway, people would take that train because back then, trains were like planes: you could take a variety of railroads to different locations. So the Harvey Company started out in Eastern Kansas, and then continued its way west.
But it really its main expansion and when it became a real national phenomenon was honestly in New Mexico and in Arizona. And Santa Fe and the Grand Canyon especially … and Albuquerque were really the centers of the Fred Harvey Company. And the company was the largest hospitality chain in America for decades.
LAUREN GILGER: Wow. So you wrote a book about Fred Harvey and the food, and I should say, you hired me when I was a student to help do some of the research here in Arizona.
STEPHEN FRIED: I did. I did.
LAUREN GILGER: I remember going to NAU’s library and copying old Fred Harvey menus for you for this book. But they were fascinating to look at, the food that was served. Tell us about that and sort of the spread of this type of cuisine.
STEPHEN FRIED: Well, I mean, keep in mind, these places they had originally a restaurant every 100 miles. Then trains got faster, and there were fewer of them. But they they ran up to 80 restaurants between Chicago and Los Angeles and between Chicago and the Gulf of Mexico.
So they had to really be on top of what the menus would be and they organized everything and they also would get fresh fruit, like if if there was a ton of cantaloupes being farmed somewhere, they would buy them all and send them out on the train.
So it was a it was an empire that — I mean, we now have companies like this, but this, this all happened before telephones. You know, this was being done mostly by the telegraph, but it was amazingly organized, it was amazingly diverse, and most people in the West say that the Fred Harvey Company taught them how to eat well.
Of course, it’s also the 100th anniversary of Route 66. The restaurants that originally opened onto the train tracks and people came to them off the trains, they opened second entrances to them for for people coming off Route 66.
The Americana aspects of Route 66 perfectly dovetail with Fred Harvey, and for many years the best restaurants on Route 66 were these Fred Harvey restaurants which had been around for a long time.
But what this all becomes is just a great celebration of travel in the West. And, you know, Western travel is about trains, it’s about cars, it’s about getting out and seeing America in that big way that you can’t see when you fly over it.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. So there is a link obviously between the histories here between Fred Harvey and Route 66. And eventually, right, like one leads to the other in a way, like you see railway travel in America give way to automobile travel and Route 66 and that car culture, right?
STEPHEN FRIED: Yeah, although what’s interesting is of course the trains thought that they would always be in control. So when they had the opportunity to invest in cars, they were like, “Oh no, we just do trains.” So that’s how the car companies built up themselves, and the plane companies as well.
The Harvey Company was one of the few companies that invested in both. The Harvey Company also was involved in the early days of the airlines. But look, the history of travel in the West is a huge, important thing because it is the main economy for many parts of this.
And of course Santa Fe and the Grand Canyon and all places in between, these are amazing places that grew up a lot after the First World War. Because during the First World War, nobody could go to Europe anymore. So all of a sudden people had to experience the West, and it just so happened that the first Western world’s fairs were in 1915.
So all of a sudden people from all over the world were coming to the American West, to the world’s fair in San Francisco, to the world’s fair in San Diego, and then they traveled through the Southwest. That was the beginning of what we now know as tourist Southwest, and I think that so much of it is still wonderfully preserved and you get in your car and go and it’s still just as great.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. I mean, so one of the things I have to ask about Fred Harvey before we finish this is about the Harvey Girls, right? Like I mentioned Judy Garland and the sort of the famous outfits they would wear and just bringing women out to this side of the country, right? This was a legacy, he believed.
STEPHEN FRIED: Yeah, so the Harvey Company, first of all they were fighting racism against African American waiters in the Southwest, which was pretty bad during the late 1800s after the Civil War. They decided they would bring in single women and have them be the waitresses at all the restaurants from Chicago all the way to California.
This was the first opportunity for most single women to be able to travel and see the world and be independent, and many of them stayed in the towns that they worked in and got married and ended up building up small and large communities. Some of them went to the Grand Canyon, and their stories are amazing. Some of them went to really little towns and lived there.
But the Harvey Girls existed. Over 100,000 women had the experience of working for Fred Harvey, at least for six months. And if you worked for six months, you got a free ticket anywhere on the railroad.
LAUREN GILGER: Six months and a free ticket. Yeah.
STEPHEN FRIED: This was an amazing phenomenon. And they were also incredible waitresses with pinpoint abilities. They had rules for everything, codes for everything. Because you wanted to get everyone in and out in 30 minutes. And so they had to be able to serve a complete gourmet meal in 30 minutes. And the way you do that is you cut every second out of it you can.
And also the Harvey Girls were very impetuous, smart women. When you meet former Harvey Girls and their families now, you can tell they are different. They are people who came to the West and had guts and determination. A lot of them turned out to be very interesting.
LAUREN GILGER: One hundred thousand. Wow. Let me ask you lastly, Stephen, just about, I mean on this 150th anniversary and the centennial of Route 66, what do you think Fred Harvey’s legacy is today? I mean, what do you think his work and innovation say about the spirit of the West?
STEPHEN FRIED: Well, interestingly, of course, the food and of course the hospitality and the restaurants, but I think what’s equally important is that the Fred Harvey Company at the turn of the last century really discovered Native American art and wanted to make sure that people understood that this was a true American culture. Much of the Native American art in museums now was originally purchased by the Fred Harvey Company, and they also went into business with Native American artists.
Part of what we’re going to be doing for the anniversary celebration in Arizona is doing an event at the Heard Museum. The Heard Museum both has the Fred Harvey Fine Arts Collection.
But what was interesting for the Harvey Company was not only to make sure that you got good food and you stayed in a beautiful hotel. It was that you appreciated American history. You appreciated the Southwest in all its cultures. The kind of multiculturalism that people just started talking about over the last two decades, the Harvey Company was preaching to tourists in the 1910s, in the 1920s.
So I think their legacy — besides the restaurants, besides the hotels — is also just a way of talking about American history in a way that is authentic, accurate and appreciates the amazing art forms of the country.
LAUREN GILGER: Wow. Quite a legacy. All right, that is Stephen Fried, journalist, professor at Columbia and U Penn, author of “Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West.” Stephen, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate you taking the time.
STEPHEN FRIED: Thanks so much, Lauren.
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