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Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West
The legendary life and entrepreneurial vision of Fred Harvey helped shape American culture and history for three generations—from the 1880s all the way through World War II—and still influence our lives today in surprising and fascinating ways. Now award-winning journalist Stephen Fried re-creates the life of this unlikely American hero, the founding father of the nation’s service industry, whose remarkable family business civilized the West and introduced America to Americans.
Appetite for America is the incredible real-life story of Fred Harvey—told in depth for the first time ever—as well as the story of this country’s expansion into the Wild West of Bat Masterson and Billy the Kid, of the great days of the railroad, of a time when a deal could still be made with a handshake and the United States was still uniting. As a young immigrant, Fred Harvey worked his way up from dishwasher to household name: He was Ray Kroc before McDonald’s, J. Willard Marriott before Marriott Hotels, Howard Schultz before Starbucks. His eating houses and hotels along the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad (including historic lodges still in use at the Grand Canyon) were patronized by princes, presidents, and countless ordinary travelers looking for the best cup of coffee in the country. Harvey’s staff of carefully screened single young women—the celebrated Harvey Girls—were the country’s first female workforce and became genuine Americana, even inspiring an MGM musical starring Judy Garland.
With the verve and passion of Fred Harvey himself, Stephen Fried tells the story of how this visionary built his business from a single lunch counter into a family empire whose marketing and innovations we still encounter in myriad ways. Inspiring, instructive, and hugely entertaining, Appetite for America is historical biography that is as richly rewarding as a slice of fresh apple pie—and every bit as satisfying.
Appetite for America is the incredible real-life story of Fred Harvey—told in depth for the first time ever—as well as the story of this country’s expansion into the Wild West of Bat Masterson and Billy the Kid, of the great days of the railroad, of a time when a deal could still be made with a handshake and the United States was still uniting. As a young immigrant, Fred Harvey worked his way up from dishwasher to household name: He was Ray Kroc before McDonald’s, J. Willard Marriott before Marriott Hotels, Howard Schultz before Starbucks. His eating houses and hotels along the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad (including historic lodges still in use at the Grand Canyon) were patronized by princes, presidents, and countless ordinary travelers looking for the best cup of coffee in the country. Harvey’s staff of carefully screened single young women—the celebrated Harvey Girls—were the country’s first female workforce and became genuine Americana, even inspiring an MGM musical starring Judy Garland.
With the verve and passion of Fred Harvey himself, Stephen Fried tells the story of how this visionary built his business from a single lunch counter into a family empire whose marketing and innovations we still encounter in myriad ways. Inspiring, instructive, and hugely entertaining, Appetite for America is historical biography that is as richly rewarding as a slice of fresh apple pie—and every bit as satisfying.
518 pages, Hardcover
First published March 23, 2010
229 people are currently reading
1515 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Fried
22 books86 followersStephen Fried is an award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author who teaches at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania.
His latest books are RUSH: Revolution, Madness and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father (Crown) and Profiles in Mental Health Courage (Dutton) by Patrick Kennedy & Stephen Fried.
He has written six other acclaimed nonfiction books, including the biographies Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West—One Meal at a Time and Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia; and the mental health memoir A Common Struggle, co-authored with Congressman Patrick Kennedy. Fried also wrote the investigative books Bitter Pills: Inside the Hazardous World of Legal Drugs and The New Rabbi, as well as a collection of essays on marriage, Husbandry.
A two-time winner of the National Magazine Award, he has written frequently for Vanity Fair, GQ, The Washington Post Magazine, Smithsonian, Rolling Stone, Glamour, and Philadelphia Magazine.
Fried lectures widely on the subjects of his books and magazine articles, and does editorial consulting. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, author Diane Ayres.
FB author page: https://www.facebook.com/Stephen-Frie...
His latest books are RUSH: Revolution, Madness and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father (Crown) and Profiles in Mental Health Courage (Dutton) by Patrick Kennedy & Stephen Fried.
He has written six other acclaimed nonfiction books, including the biographies Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West—One Meal at a Time and Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia; and the mental health memoir A Common Struggle, co-authored with Congressman Patrick Kennedy. Fried also wrote the investigative books Bitter Pills: Inside the Hazardous World of Legal Drugs and The New Rabbi, as well as a collection of essays on marriage, Husbandry.
A two-time winner of the National Magazine Award, he has written frequently for Vanity Fair, GQ, The Washington Post Magazine, Smithsonian, Rolling Stone, Glamour, and Philadelphia Magazine.
Fried lectures widely on the subjects of his books and magazine articles, and does editorial consulting. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, author Diane Ayres.
FB author page: https://www.facebook.com/Stephen-Frie...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 232 reviews
October 9, 2011
This is a great story, well worth the read, and for me, postive re-enforcement of my family's place in the history of the WEst. My dad worked for Santa Fe for 48 years. My mother's brother ended his worklife working for the Santa Fe. My cousins' uncle ran a Santa Fe section gang out of a converted Pullman off a sidetrack in Bernallio, New Mexico. My birthplace and hometown, both of my sisters birthplaces, my hometown, my father and my mother's birthplace and home town are in this book. My grandmother was a Harvey Girl so many of the more well-known people and places in this book were dinner table conversation at her house. There is southwest U.S. history galore here. There is history of the Grand Canyon and the sumptuous hotel there, El Tovar. Chateau's Island an obscure water-logged spit, in the Arkansas River where a standoff took place between French explorers and Native Indians near Lakin, Kansas, is mentioned. Cooldige,Kansas which was featured in a Chevy Chase "vacation" film and where my grandfather always claimed a law was passed that women could not ride "naked, on horseback" takes a place. Las Animas, Colorado; Las Vegas, New Mexico; Lamy, New Mexico; Santa Fe's LA FONDA HOTEL; the list of places you have either been to or heard of goes on and on. Fred Harvey had a fine home in Kansas City and he and his family were active in civic and social events there. So, from Kansas City, west to California, through Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, into Oklahoma and then onto California, Fried has traced the history of the Harvey House eateries and hostelries. Fried and his wife also made their own trip and stayed at La Posada in Winslow, AZ.(this story in in the the Appendices.)APPETITE FOR AMERICA is easy to read and quite compelling. Anyone who is interested in railway history or Western Expansion will eat this up. Appendices,a list of resources, Harvey House recipies and a complete index follow the text.
January 26, 2016
“Appetite For America” is that rare book that combines the best of a history book and a business book. It’s the story of Fred Harvey, a sickly but iron-willed Englishman who built the first retail empire in America, and the story of the company he founded, also called Fred Harvey (not Fred Harvey, Inc.—just plain Fred Harvey). It’s all fascinating, and offers the reader many accurate business insights as well (although they are not billed as business insights—this is not a navel-gazing self-help “business book”).
Fred Harvey arrived in New York in 1853, seeking his fortune, starting as a dishwasher at a New York restaurant. He quickly moved to St. Louis, in many ways then the epicenter of development in the country, running a restaurant with a partner, but the Civil War (and a lazy and thieving partner, the bane of many a businessman) killed his business. He then worked in postal sorting, in the new method of sorting on moving rail cars, then became a ticket agent for a Missouri railroad. And then the railroad asked him to move to Leavenworth, the end of the line—and the jumping-off place for future rail expansion, after the end of the Civil War.
Many men sought their fortune and took opportunistic jobs in the growing America of the mid-19th Century. But Fred Harvey was a man who got things done, more than the usual person. Not only did he successfully sell tickets, in a town that initially lacked a railroad, he aggressively expanded his employer’s business. And he expanded into his own side business of selling newspaper ads while he sold tickets. He worked constantly, he improved himself constantly by reading, and he accomplished what he set out to do, unlike most people. All this took a toll on his health, which was not good to begin with. But in those days, even aside from Fred Harvey’s personality, the country was organized around the salutary principle “he who does not work, neither shall he eat.” So he persevered, from necessity, and from his own drive to succeed.
He worked his way up, becoming a major freight agent for a larger railroad, based in Chicago. And then, when he was already forty, he saw his opportunity—improving restaurants dedicated to rail passengers, who before dining cars had either had no food, or atrocious food at railroad-run “eating” establishments spaced roughly every 100 miles. Fred Harvey kept his day job, but started a management company with a partner, agreeing with the Kansas Pacific, and then the Santa Fe, railroads to manage food service at their restaurants.
What he didn’t do was merely run the same awful restaurants. Instead, from the ground up, he re-invented not just railroad food, but American restaurant food, at a time when chain restaurants did not exist and eating out was never done except when necessity demanded it. He made restaurant food attractive and enviable. Fred Harvey provided the freshest, highest-quality food (particularly coffee, beef, and cigars, delivered by special rail cars). He offered impeccable service, even with the extra complication of intermittent demand as trains came, disgorged hundreds of hungry passengers simultaneously, and went. He was an organizational genius—not because he managed people well, although he did, but because he was a detail man, like the vast majority of successful businesspeople. Fred Harvey demanded perfection from each individual restaurant manager, and he would frequently show up unexpectedly at one of his many restaurants to review performance-and if dissatisfied, he would tear the place settings from a table.
Through the 1870s and 1880s he expanded as the Santa Fe expanded, through the entire Southwest, particularly New Mexico and Arizona. His company became very large for the time, and very profitable, and very well known.
Gradually, Fred Harvey’s health declined, and he spent much time recuperating in Europe. Daily operation of his business became the task of his son Ford and his chief lieutenant, David Benjamin. Fred Harvey died in 1901, and his son and Benjamin decided to run the business as if Fred Harvey were still alive and at the helm. (That Fred Harvey had set up his will effectively requiring this for ten years probably had something to do with it.) Ford Harvey expanded the company into hotels in the Southwest, including the first hotels around (and in) the Grand Canyon, such as El Tovar. Most of these hotels are still extant today (under the management of the large management company Xanterra). They also got into publishing, selling books and magazines at railroad stations where they had restaurants, and into collecting and displaying large amounts of American Indian art.
The family became quite rich, and prominent nationwide (but especially in Kansas City and Chicago). Ford Harvey and David Benjamin faced innumerable obstacles and struggles, which they overcame, from railroad bankruptcies to giant hotel failures to financial panics and depressions to Prohibition. All of these are detailed in “Appetite For America.” Ford, who maintained Fred Harvey’s attention to detail and aggressive competence, kept the family business on track. Ford’s brother, Byron, lived in Chicago and ran the family’s interests there, not particularly well and without charisma or drive. And then Ford died of flu in 1928; Benjamin died in 1933 but had effectively retired years before.
Ford’s son Freddy really began the deterioration of the family, prior to Ford’s death, as Freddy became more involved in the business as the heir apparent. No detail man, he preferred womanizing and flying airplanes, and spending the family’s money. Then the Depression, combined with a move to dining cars instead of dining houses, made the Fred Harvey company shutter many restaurant locations. The company struggled further with a lack of leadership after Ford’s death, between Freddy and Byron, and then Freddy managed to kill himself in 1936, by the unwise choice of flying a cutting-edge plane through an ice storm. The family descended into intra-family lawsuits, and Byron presided as caretaker over a declining business.
And then, of course, the highways began to eat into the passenger rail business. Howard Johnson was the new restaurant hero of the hungry traveler. World War II gave a bump to the business—but at the fatal cost of ending the quality that had always epitomized the Fred Harvey company. By 1945, the old Fred Harvey was effectively defunct, running a few restaurants in larger train stations, and the Grand Canyon hotels, under the guidance of the Byron Harvey family. Byron Harvey died in 1954, and in 1966 the business was totally divested from the family, with all remnants left becoming effectively unrecognizable. Sic transit.
This book isn’t for everyone. It is very detailed and largely based on original historical research. If you want a quick or very light read, or a “business book” with some aphorisms and dubious advice for succeeding in today’s America, this isn’t it.
But it is a book that DOES tell you how to succeed in today’s America. Yes, you couldn’t do exactly what Fred Harvey did, even if railroads were still a going concern for passenger traffic. But what Fred Harvey did is what every successful businessperson does. He got things done—endless things, all of them done, and all of them on time. It sounds simple, but most people can’t do it. He was a perfectionist. And he solved endless problems. Then he got up and did it all again. Of course, to succeed in business, you have to have some luck. But success in business requires mostly getting things done, detail work, and solving problems. They seem easy, but they’re not.
The other interesting take-away from “Appetite For America” is that it shows what is commonly known and simultaneously always forgotten: the inevitable cycle of every business. Everybody thought railroads would dominate forever, and therefore Fred Harvey would dominate chain restaurants forever. Before Fred Harvey and after Fred Harvey, from steamboat operators to Google and Facebook, every business has seemed mighty and everlasting, until it is not. In the end, they all fall. They fall because times change, they fall because people change, they fall because families change. But in the end, they all fall.
Fred Harvey arrived in New York in 1853, seeking his fortune, starting as a dishwasher at a New York restaurant. He quickly moved to St. Louis, in many ways then the epicenter of development in the country, running a restaurant with a partner, but the Civil War (and a lazy and thieving partner, the bane of many a businessman) killed his business. He then worked in postal sorting, in the new method of sorting on moving rail cars, then became a ticket agent for a Missouri railroad. And then the railroad asked him to move to Leavenworth, the end of the line—and the jumping-off place for future rail expansion, after the end of the Civil War.
Many men sought their fortune and took opportunistic jobs in the growing America of the mid-19th Century. But Fred Harvey was a man who got things done, more than the usual person. Not only did he successfully sell tickets, in a town that initially lacked a railroad, he aggressively expanded his employer’s business. And he expanded into his own side business of selling newspaper ads while he sold tickets. He worked constantly, he improved himself constantly by reading, and he accomplished what he set out to do, unlike most people. All this took a toll on his health, which was not good to begin with. But in those days, even aside from Fred Harvey’s personality, the country was organized around the salutary principle “he who does not work, neither shall he eat.” So he persevered, from necessity, and from his own drive to succeed.
He worked his way up, becoming a major freight agent for a larger railroad, based in Chicago. And then, when he was already forty, he saw his opportunity—improving restaurants dedicated to rail passengers, who before dining cars had either had no food, or atrocious food at railroad-run “eating” establishments spaced roughly every 100 miles. Fred Harvey kept his day job, but started a management company with a partner, agreeing with the Kansas Pacific, and then the Santa Fe, railroads to manage food service at their restaurants.
What he didn’t do was merely run the same awful restaurants. Instead, from the ground up, he re-invented not just railroad food, but American restaurant food, at a time when chain restaurants did not exist and eating out was never done except when necessity demanded it. He made restaurant food attractive and enviable. Fred Harvey provided the freshest, highest-quality food (particularly coffee, beef, and cigars, delivered by special rail cars). He offered impeccable service, even with the extra complication of intermittent demand as trains came, disgorged hundreds of hungry passengers simultaneously, and went. He was an organizational genius—not because he managed people well, although he did, but because he was a detail man, like the vast majority of successful businesspeople. Fred Harvey demanded perfection from each individual restaurant manager, and he would frequently show up unexpectedly at one of his many restaurants to review performance-and if dissatisfied, he would tear the place settings from a table.
Through the 1870s and 1880s he expanded as the Santa Fe expanded, through the entire Southwest, particularly New Mexico and Arizona. His company became very large for the time, and very profitable, and very well known.
Gradually, Fred Harvey’s health declined, and he spent much time recuperating in Europe. Daily operation of his business became the task of his son Ford and his chief lieutenant, David Benjamin. Fred Harvey died in 1901, and his son and Benjamin decided to run the business as if Fred Harvey were still alive and at the helm. (That Fred Harvey had set up his will effectively requiring this for ten years probably had something to do with it.) Ford Harvey expanded the company into hotels in the Southwest, including the first hotels around (and in) the Grand Canyon, such as El Tovar. Most of these hotels are still extant today (under the management of the large management company Xanterra). They also got into publishing, selling books and magazines at railroad stations where they had restaurants, and into collecting and displaying large amounts of American Indian art.
The family became quite rich, and prominent nationwide (but especially in Kansas City and Chicago). Ford Harvey and David Benjamin faced innumerable obstacles and struggles, which they overcame, from railroad bankruptcies to giant hotel failures to financial panics and depressions to Prohibition. All of these are detailed in “Appetite For America.” Ford, who maintained Fred Harvey’s attention to detail and aggressive competence, kept the family business on track. Ford’s brother, Byron, lived in Chicago and ran the family’s interests there, not particularly well and without charisma or drive. And then Ford died of flu in 1928; Benjamin died in 1933 but had effectively retired years before.
Ford’s son Freddy really began the deterioration of the family, prior to Ford’s death, as Freddy became more involved in the business as the heir apparent. No detail man, he preferred womanizing and flying airplanes, and spending the family’s money. Then the Depression, combined with a move to dining cars instead of dining houses, made the Fred Harvey company shutter many restaurant locations. The company struggled further with a lack of leadership after Ford’s death, between Freddy and Byron, and then Freddy managed to kill himself in 1936, by the unwise choice of flying a cutting-edge plane through an ice storm. The family descended into intra-family lawsuits, and Byron presided as caretaker over a declining business.
And then, of course, the highways began to eat into the passenger rail business. Howard Johnson was the new restaurant hero of the hungry traveler. World War II gave a bump to the business—but at the fatal cost of ending the quality that had always epitomized the Fred Harvey company. By 1945, the old Fred Harvey was effectively defunct, running a few restaurants in larger train stations, and the Grand Canyon hotels, under the guidance of the Byron Harvey family. Byron Harvey died in 1954, and in 1966 the business was totally divested from the family, with all remnants left becoming effectively unrecognizable. Sic transit.
This book isn’t for everyone. It is very detailed and largely based on original historical research. If you want a quick or very light read, or a “business book” with some aphorisms and dubious advice for succeeding in today’s America, this isn’t it.
But it is a book that DOES tell you how to succeed in today’s America. Yes, you couldn’t do exactly what Fred Harvey did, even if railroads were still a going concern for passenger traffic. But what Fred Harvey did is what every successful businessperson does. He got things done—endless things, all of them done, and all of them on time. It sounds simple, but most people can’t do it. He was a perfectionist. And he solved endless problems. Then he got up and did it all again. Of course, to succeed in business, you have to have some luck. But success in business requires mostly getting things done, detail work, and solving problems. They seem easy, but they’re not.
The other interesting take-away from “Appetite For America” is that it shows what is commonly known and simultaneously always forgotten: the inevitable cycle of every business. Everybody thought railroads would dominate forever, and therefore Fred Harvey would dominate chain restaurants forever. Before Fred Harvey and after Fred Harvey, from steamboat operators to Google and Facebook, every business has seemed mighty and everlasting, until it is not. In the end, they all fall. They fall because times change, they fall because people change, they fall because families change. But in the end, they all fall.
March 8, 2016
A truly awesome story of an American family business that feels like the Forrest Gump of the 1850s-1940s. I had never heard of Fred Harvey, but the story of the business expansion across the Midwest and southwest, as well as its intersection with the railroads and the early days of aviation were fascinating. Given that I do not typically read "hard" history books, this book was nonetheless a great tale that was chock full of historical facts and impact of the expansion of America and what was going on to the west in the shadows of the "Captains of Industry" from the east coast. Great read.
September 2, 2015
Spectacular! Just finished reading it and I already miss Fred. This is a biography of Fred Harvey - the man, the brand, the corporate entity, the standard. It is also a pure romance about the old west. Could. not. put. it. down. Who is Fred Harvey? Surely you are familiar with the Harvey Girls - waitresses brought out west by Fred Harvey to work in his train depot restaurants and coincidentally provide a desperately needed infusion of women into the old west. Fred Harvey created the first legitimate employment opportunity for women (although neither the man nor the company believed in women in the board room - no one's perfect), created the first chain restaurants, 'fast food', branding, all while adhering to very strict high standards of service. The book ends with the ultimate sell off of the company by his grandsons in the mid-20th Century. Along the journey, you also meet cowboys and Indians, experience the rise and fall of railroads, the rise of American tourism and creation of the oldest national parks, and how southwest design was developed. This book is a great enjoyable read for anyone - FredHeads, trainiacs, fans of the old west, Harvey Girls, the history of the southwest or you just like a book that pulls you into a world and brings it to life.
December 15, 2021
Most surprising book of the year. Excellent and interesting from the first page to the recipe book appendix.
It makes me want to visit Santa Fe, like right away.
It makes me want to visit Santa Fe, like right away.
August 4, 2024
Fried’s book has helped me to rethink my own work on Lincoln tourism. So helpful to understand American social and commercial history.
July 19, 2020
An interesting look at the culinary tastes, dining habits, and rail travel of the last half of the 19th century, and the first few decades of the 20th. Fred Harvey immigrated from Great Britain as a young man in the 1850s, and bounced around from job to job, ending up in St. Louis, and then Leavenworth, Kansas. With the assistance of the powerhouse Santa Fe Railroad, he slowly but steadily built up an eating establishment business, placing lunchrooms and cafeterias at depot stations throughout Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
Harvey operated out of Kansas City, and was extremely industrious: at one point he seemed to wear three or four hats simultaneously. Running the eating houses was only one aspect of what he was doing as he was also looking at expanding into dining cars, selling tickets for the railroad, and getting into the bookstore business. Harvey was constantly traveling, despite frequent bouts of ill health that would sideline him in bed for days at a time. Unfortunately, he never was really healthy, resulting in him being one of those people who would literally try anything as a proposed remedy to relieve him of his chronic headaches and gastrointestinal difficulties.
In much the same manner as Walt Disney (who makes a cameo late in the book), Harvey obscured himself behind his operations, placing his name - and not his face or himself, per se - front and center. He did this because he wanted to establish Fred Harvey the brand instead of Fred Harvey the man. In this he was successful, as the company passed on to his son Ford, and then down the line to his other son Byron and then Byron's children before finally being sold. All the while, it was "Fred Harvey" and patrons were referred to as "guests of Fred Harvey" with "Fred Harvey" being their "host", long after Fred himself had died.
Fried is very detailed, and provides a wonderful look at the explosion of the railroads, their impact on American society, how that society eventually transferred over to air travel, and consumers' changing habits. He chronicles the sometimes dysfunctional family dynamics of the Harveys, a bit too much in my estimation. At one point, Fried seemed to turn his attention to describing what all of Harvey's rich children and grandchildren spent their money on and how they tried to backstab each other. It boiled down to a bunch of rich people squabbling amongst themselves, and losing sight of what the business was doing. In the same respect, it felt like Fried started to lose sense of what the book was about, as I thought this got a little too detailed.
One aspect that Fried covers in-depthly but really does not criticize is Fred Harvey's (both the man and the company) male chauvinism. No women were allowed to run the company, or even to serve on senior positions, even family members. I would have liked to have seen Fried score the Harveys for 1) being morally wrong, and 2) for hurting their business - that short-sighted and bigoted action took away any perspective that women could have offered. I fail to see how that is good for anyone. Also, Harvey's hiring practices and employee culture bordered on the cult-like, with women signing contracts indicating they would not get married for a specific time period, and a very regimental and proscribed way of doing things. For the average employee, I got the profound sense that individuality was stifled and frowned upon.
Overall though this is an entertaining read. And, it is nice to read history that is not so heavy. Who doesn't like reading about food?
Grade: B+
Harvey operated out of Kansas City, and was extremely industrious: at one point he seemed to wear three or four hats simultaneously. Running the eating houses was only one aspect of what he was doing as he was also looking at expanding into dining cars, selling tickets for the railroad, and getting into the bookstore business. Harvey was constantly traveling, despite frequent bouts of ill health that would sideline him in bed for days at a time. Unfortunately, he never was really healthy, resulting in him being one of those people who would literally try anything as a proposed remedy to relieve him of his chronic headaches and gastrointestinal difficulties.
In much the same manner as Walt Disney (who makes a cameo late in the book), Harvey obscured himself behind his operations, placing his name - and not his face or himself, per se - front and center. He did this because he wanted to establish Fred Harvey the brand instead of Fred Harvey the man. In this he was successful, as the company passed on to his son Ford, and then down the line to his other son Byron and then Byron's children before finally being sold. All the while, it was "Fred Harvey" and patrons were referred to as "guests of Fred Harvey" with "Fred Harvey" being their "host", long after Fred himself had died.
Fried is very detailed, and provides a wonderful look at the explosion of the railroads, their impact on American society, how that society eventually transferred over to air travel, and consumers' changing habits. He chronicles the sometimes dysfunctional family dynamics of the Harveys, a bit too much in my estimation. At one point, Fried seemed to turn his attention to describing what all of Harvey's rich children and grandchildren spent their money on and how they tried to backstab each other. It boiled down to a bunch of rich people squabbling amongst themselves, and losing sight of what the business was doing. In the same respect, it felt like Fried started to lose sense of what the book was about, as I thought this got a little too detailed.
One aspect that Fried covers in-depthly but really does not criticize is Fred Harvey's (both the man and the company) male chauvinism. No women were allowed to run the company, or even to serve on senior positions, even family members. I would have liked to have seen Fried score the Harveys for 1) being morally wrong, and 2) for hurting their business - that short-sighted and bigoted action took away any perspective that women could have offered. I fail to see how that is good for anyone. Also, Harvey's hiring practices and employee culture bordered on the cult-like, with women signing contracts indicating they would not get married for a specific time period, and a very regimental and proscribed way of doing things. For the average employee, I got the profound sense that individuality was stifled and frowned upon.
Overall though this is an entertaining read. And, it is nice to read history that is not so heavy. Who doesn't like reading about food?
Grade: B+
September 21, 2017
Interesting read, but better skimmed than carefully read, and tries a little too hard to be all things to all readers - it's a family biography (but there are few, if any, direct quotes, and it's hard to get a real grip on anyone other than the original Fred Harvey), a corporate biography (but it has too many digressions), a history of the "civilizing of the West" (a problematic term, and the framing device used is limiting, but there is some interesting stuff related to the Grand Canyon), and a general compilation of materials involving... well, everything even tangentially related to the Harveys. As a business biography, it suffers due to that customary Gilded Age issue: basically, through a combination of skill, cutthroat tactics, and luck, Fred Harvey was able to get a monopoly at a key point in history, and then the business essentially was his descendants' to despoil. Probably would have enjoyed it more if I felt any connection to the Harvey restaurants.
November 12, 2017
I had this book on my list to read for a long time. My public library did not have it but my college work library did- and I am so glad they did. What a great read! After reading this book, I am surprised I had not heard of Fred Harvey. His influence spanned 50 years of American history as well as a large geographic area. It was entertaining to read about this time in history including the heyday of the railroad and Western expansion. I have also visited lots of places Harvey influenced including the Union Stations in Kansas City and St. Louis, the La Fonda in Santa Fe, and the train ride between Williams, AZ and the Grand Canyon and the buildings at the South Rim. Reading this book gave me a deeper perspective about those sites.
April 28, 2019
What a great book! A historical account/biography that reads as a intriguingly as a novel. Investigative journalist Stephen Fried clearly delved into his subject with relish, and as a result has produced an important work about development of (primarily) the Southwest via the railroads, specifically the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, and hospitality network created by Fred Harvey, whose company fed and the housed travelers and tourists discovering the West.
I came across this book in the gift shop of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ during a recent trip and on my return, was able to obtain it from my local library. Not only did I enjoy it immensely, but I learned a tremendous amount about the locales where Harvey's network of restaurants and hotels were established, and in some cases, still exist under other management. Can't wait to get back out West and visit a few of them.
I came across this book in the gift shop of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ during a recent trip and on my return, was able to obtain it from my local library. Not only did I enjoy it immensely, but I learned a tremendous amount about the locales where Harvey's network of restaurants and hotels were established, and in some cases, still exist under other management. Can't wait to get back out West and visit a few of them.
February 27, 2019
If you like history, this is a compelling "adventure story" that spans many decades and is told via the impact of the Fred Harvey family on America's expansion west. It is a discovery story, a transportation story, an economic story, and an entrepreneurial story. But most of all it is a family story told with depth and insight - as the Harveys made a unique imprint on the westward movement and the Santa Fe railway. Their involvement gave the 19th Century world a new scaffold to use when considering, analyzing and understanding the broad scope of American heritage & culture. I learned so much and was thoroughly entertained.
August 8, 2022
Having grown up with trips to the Grand Canyon, I had always heard the Fred Harvey name and had always wanted to know me. The book covers Fred's life as he comes to America experiences some failure but then phenomenal success creating the first restaurant chain that set a standard for excellence, civilized the west, and influenced countless business models we still experience today. The torch gets passed to Fred's son Ford and then to the next generation Freddy before wrapping up as the business changes and fades just like the family line with Freddy dying young and without a successor. What Fried does exceptionally well is use the Harvey story to really be the story of America, covering from after the Civil War through World War II. Fred Harvey really was the American dream and by covering the rise and fall of the restaurant, you cover the change in America from wild west to industrial nation.
April 22, 2020
I had this book on Kindle before I read Fried's masterful biography Benjamin Rush. I quickly read Part One over a summer, then slowly read Part Two over another year. Review books get in the way...
The entertaining book tells a story of an immigrant who builds an empire and changes the American landscape. Fred Harvey was "the father of the American service industry," building a chain of restaurants and hotels on the burgeoning railroads that opened up the West. It touches on many aspects of American history and society.
The entertaining book tells a story of an immigrant who builds an empire and changes the American landscape. Fred Harvey was "the father of the American service industry," building a chain of restaurants and hotels on the burgeoning railroads that opened up the West. It touches on many aspects of American history and society.
August 4, 2022
Last year (2021), I read a book about the Harvey Girls, those pioneering waitresses who served in Fred Harvey eating restaurants across the western rails. While the book was quite interesting, its main focus was on the women themselves, and I wanted more information on Fred Harvey, the man and his company.
Stephen Fried definitely provides this and much more in a very readable history of what's considered to be the first chain restaurant in the United States. The Fred Harvey system became a standard for clean restaurants and delicious, affordable fare no matter where your train happened to stop - which was not the case prior to Harvey as the railroads expanded to the West.
Fred Harvey, the company, would go on to own hotels, newsstands, and shopping centers in some railroad stations, as well as publishing and even a touring company. While the methods and reasoning would be lacking today, it's still true that Harvey's company gave women and people of color a chance to work when the rest of the country still didn't.
Stephen Fried definitely provides this and much more in a very readable history of what's considered to be the first chain restaurant in the United States. The Fred Harvey system became a standard for clean restaurants and delicious, affordable fare no matter where your train happened to stop - which was not the case prior to Harvey as the railroads expanded to the West.
Fred Harvey, the company, would go on to own hotels, newsstands, and shopping centers in some railroad stations, as well as publishing and even a touring company. While the methods and reasoning would be lacking today, it's still true that Harvey's company gave women and people of color a chance to work when the rest of the country still didn't.
May 7, 2022
I had never heard of Fred Harvey, but there were so many parts of this story I found interesting - more so being born and raised in Kansas with an AT&SF caboose in the backyard. There was so much history packed into this book - westward expansion by train and the development of restaurant chains. Thoroughly researched and written in an easy to digest style.
March 5, 2021
Interesting historical book about fred harvey and his many business. I don't know how I had never heard his name before, pretty influential man in the early tourist industry in the west.
December 10, 2025
3.5, skimmed the 2nd half but very well researched and interesting!
July 26, 2020
I think that I would read more non-fiction if it were all as well written as this! This is an immensely readable and thoroughly researched story about Fred Harvey and his influence on just about everything in this country. I can't believe that I had never heard of him at all until I recently saw a piece about the Harvey Girls on PBS. Granted, the rural area that I grew up in had no connection to anything in Harvey's world, but surely there should have been some mention of him in a college marketing class, at the very least. The man had a hand in almost everything that was going on in America in the early and mid 1900's. I appreciated his standards of excellence and the fact that he was able to maintain them for such a long time and through so many upheavals and changes. I would love to have the opportunity to have a Harvey meal or ride one of those trains, or - best of all - spend a night at El Tovar! Wonderful story about an enterprising and hard-working family!
June 5, 2015
Lost highways
Fried mines a fascinating piece of lost American history in this study of Fred Harvey and his company. Fred Harvey was born in England in 1835, but, like a character from a Dickens novel his father was legally declared a pauper, and came to America with his family in 1853 to escape London's dirty streets. Fred found his adopted home in Kansas a friendly place to grow, and its burgeoning railroad industry a great partner to grow with as he built a string of restaurants, lunch counters, newsstands, and hotels along the railroad lines of the Midwest and Southwest from Kansas to California.
Along the way, as Fried documents, Harvey accomplished more than personal financial success.
--He provided a model for delivering quality food service at affordable prices, and established patterns of standardization and franchising that enabled roadside service (Howard Johnson's) and fast food (McDonald's) to flourish in the next century.
--He raised culinary standards with fresh ingredients prepared in healthy and tasty recipes at a fair price.
--He raised social standards by setting and maintaining dress codes (even in the face of a notorious nuisance lawsuit that reached a state Supreme Court!) and hiring and training a corps of fresh-faced and morally upstanding female waitstaff known as Harvey Girls.
In summary, as Fried's subtitle says, Harvey's real achievement was civilizing the West--at a time when Custer was still battling (and losing to) the natives, and Jesse James and his imitators were stopping trains and stagecoaches. He set standards for indigenous touring and Native American ethnography that shaped and in some cases created the Southwest as a cultural force and academic field of study.
But the fascinating part and the core of Fried's story is the people. Fred Harvey was the patriarch of a growing family that he groomed to work for and eventually run his business. He was not just the face of the business, he was the business, notorious for continuous tours of his far-flung sites and unannounced inspections of the lunch-room readiness for the 30-minute ballet of food service during the train stops.
He was also people smart. The company name he used was Fred Harvey (not The Fred Harvey Company or Fred Harvey Incorporated), so that the customer felt the personal touch of service by Fred Harvey--a personal touch that continued after his death when his will called for leadership to pass to his son Ford, but with no changes in company name or structure, and no financial payouts from his estate for ten years. This kept the family engaged in managing the business and their personal lives and finances wisely, avoiding the family-business collapse that often comes with the second and third generation.
Eventually, there would be family troubles, and financial struggles, but Fred Harvey soldiered on (literally, with its food-service contracts during both 20th-century World Wars) until eventually America went past it. With the death of longhaul rail passenger service and changing social and cultural mores in the post-war era, along with the privately-held fiscally-conservative approach to borrowing and new investments that opened the field for the new mega-service corporations growing up then, Fred Harvey slowly contracted to a quiet death.
Don't skip the appendices that document Fried's rail trip to visit extant Fred Harvey sites (including the famous Grand Canyon properties), and the master list of all Fred Harvey sites. This pre-publication review copy didn't have any photographs, but a few hours spent searching for Fred Harvey on the Internet will yield a trove of photographs both contemporary and current ofr the people and places of Fred Harvey. Its worth the tour.
Fried mines a fascinating piece of lost American history in this study of Fred Harvey and his company. Fred Harvey was born in England in 1835, but, like a character from a Dickens novel his father was legally declared a pauper, and came to America with his family in 1853 to escape London's dirty streets. Fred found his adopted home in Kansas a friendly place to grow, and its burgeoning railroad industry a great partner to grow with as he built a string of restaurants, lunch counters, newsstands, and hotels along the railroad lines of the Midwest and Southwest from Kansas to California.
Along the way, as Fried documents, Harvey accomplished more than personal financial success.
--He provided a model for delivering quality food service at affordable prices, and established patterns of standardization and franchising that enabled roadside service (Howard Johnson's) and fast food (McDonald's) to flourish in the next century.
--He raised culinary standards with fresh ingredients prepared in healthy and tasty recipes at a fair price.
--He raised social standards by setting and maintaining dress codes (even in the face of a notorious nuisance lawsuit that reached a state Supreme Court!) and hiring and training a corps of fresh-faced and morally upstanding female waitstaff known as Harvey Girls.
In summary, as Fried's subtitle says, Harvey's real achievement was civilizing the West--at a time when Custer was still battling (and losing to) the natives, and Jesse James and his imitators were stopping trains and stagecoaches. He set standards for indigenous touring and Native American ethnography that shaped and in some cases created the Southwest as a cultural force and academic field of study.
But the fascinating part and the core of Fried's story is the people. Fred Harvey was the patriarch of a growing family that he groomed to work for and eventually run his business. He was not just the face of the business, he was the business, notorious for continuous tours of his far-flung sites and unannounced inspections of the lunch-room readiness for the 30-minute ballet of food service during the train stops.
He was also people smart. The company name he used was Fred Harvey (not The Fred Harvey Company or Fred Harvey Incorporated), so that the customer felt the personal touch of service by Fred Harvey--a personal touch that continued after his death when his will called for leadership to pass to his son Ford, but with no changes in company name or structure, and no financial payouts from his estate for ten years. This kept the family engaged in managing the business and their personal lives and finances wisely, avoiding the family-business collapse that often comes with the second and third generation.
Eventually, there would be family troubles, and financial struggles, but Fred Harvey soldiered on (literally, with its food-service contracts during both 20th-century World Wars) until eventually America went past it. With the death of longhaul rail passenger service and changing social and cultural mores in the post-war era, along with the privately-held fiscally-conservative approach to borrowing and new investments that opened the field for the new mega-service corporations growing up then, Fred Harvey slowly contracted to a quiet death.
Don't skip the appendices that document Fried's rail trip to visit extant Fred Harvey sites (including the famous Grand Canyon properties), and the master list of all Fred Harvey sites. This pre-publication review copy didn't have any photographs, but a few hours spent searching for Fred Harvey on the Internet will yield a trove of photographs both contemporary and current ofr the people and places of Fred Harvey. Its worth the tour.
August 29, 2014
I am old enough to remember the last gasp of Fred Harvey's hospitality empire in Chicago. Whenever we would pick up relatives at either the Dearborn or Union station, we would always go to the big Fred Harvey restaurants there before we went home. Later as the Interstate highway system began to criss-cross the state, the company ran the restaurants that were located in the oases that crossed the tollways. And in the 1950's I rode the Santa Fe Super Chief with my grandparents out to Los Angeles and got to spend three days eating sumptuous Fred Harvey meals in the dining car. But I really knew very little of the company or of Fred Harvey himself.
An immigrant from England in the 1850's, he worked in both the food service industry and then for the railroads, and also was a freelance salesman on the side. In his early forties, he decided to reinvent himself and started a business feeding train passengers in the American West, which in those days was still very wild, and in doing so became the father of what we know today as the American service industry. "Fred Harvey" was the first widely known and trusted brand in the country. He ran all the hotels and restaurants along the country's largest railroad, the Santa Fe, from Chicago to Los Angeles and later went on to serve the cross-country driving public along the fabled Route 66. His grandson took an interest in the early days of flying and was an original partner in TWA along with Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford. He also provided countless women with employment opportunities as his famous Harvey Girls, championed the formation of the Grand Canyon National Park, and also created a national chain of newsstands and bookstores across the country.
He did all this while demanding the highest standards of service and quality of his product. At its peak Fred Harvey had sixty-five restaurants and lunch counters, a dozen large hotels (including El Tovar and Angel Brite on the South rim of the Grand Canyon and La Fonda in Santa Fe), all the restaurants and retail shops in the country's largest train stations, and controlled so many newsstands and bookstores that his orders affected the best seller lists.
Lastly, he played a huge role in developing the American tourism industry as we know it. He was largely responsible for creating the Grand Canyon as the country's premier National Park, and was a driving force in developing appreciation for Native American arts and culture. His embrace of Native American/Spanish American imagery in his hotels and restaurants in the American Southwest gave birth to what we know today as the "Santa Fe style."
But then what happened? As is often the case, the third generation of the family, raised in luxury, dropped the ball. Fred HArvey's grandson, Freddy, was more interested in flying than in attending to the day-to-day concerns of the business, and when he and his wife were killed in a tragic plane crash in the 1930's, the company was taken over by Fred Harvey;'s younger son Byron and his children., who decided to hitch their fortunes to the railroad instead of the driving or flying public, and we all know how that turned out. In 1966 what was left of the company went public and then was sold to a Hawaiian based conglomerate and that was that.
This is a fascinating story of an American entrepreneur who built a hospitality empire with the highest standards only for it to fall to pieces due to disruptive technologies in the twentieth century.
An immigrant from England in the 1850's, he worked in both the food service industry and then for the railroads, and also was a freelance salesman on the side. In his early forties, he decided to reinvent himself and started a business feeding train passengers in the American West, which in those days was still very wild, and in doing so became the father of what we know today as the American service industry. "Fred Harvey" was the first widely known and trusted brand in the country. He ran all the hotels and restaurants along the country's largest railroad, the Santa Fe, from Chicago to Los Angeles and later went on to serve the cross-country driving public along the fabled Route 66. His grandson took an interest in the early days of flying and was an original partner in TWA along with Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford. He also provided countless women with employment opportunities as his famous Harvey Girls, championed the formation of the Grand Canyon National Park, and also created a national chain of newsstands and bookstores across the country.
He did all this while demanding the highest standards of service and quality of his product. At its peak Fred Harvey had sixty-five restaurants and lunch counters, a dozen large hotels (including El Tovar and Angel Brite on the South rim of the Grand Canyon and La Fonda in Santa Fe), all the restaurants and retail shops in the country's largest train stations, and controlled so many newsstands and bookstores that his orders affected the best seller lists.
Lastly, he played a huge role in developing the American tourism industry as we know it. He was largely responsible for creating the Grand Canyon as the country's premier National Park, and was a driving force in developing appreciation for Native American arts and culture. His embrace of Native American/Spanish American imagery in his hotels and restaurants in the American Southwest gave birth to what we know today as the "Santa Fe style."
But then what happened? As is often the case, the third generation of the family, raised in luxury, dropped the ball. Fred HArvey's grandson, Freddy, was more interested in flying than in attending to the day-to-day concerns of the business, and when he and his wife were killed in a tragic plane crash in the 1930's, the company was taken over by Fred Harvey;'s younger son Byron and his children., who decided to hitch their fortunes to the railroad instead of the driving or flying public, and we all know how that turned out. In 1966 what was left of the company went public and then was sold to a Hawaiian based conglomerate and that was that.
This is a fascinating story of an American entrepreneur who built a hospitality empire with the highest standards only for it to fall to pieces due to disruptive technologies in the twentieth century.
February 19, 2022
By studying one family's entrepreneurial journey we get a glimpse at all sorts of developments happening at the same time, the industrial revolution. It's like the Forest Gump of late 1800's & early 1900's of U.S. history.
January 12, 2014
Without a doubt, this is the best book to go to for the history of the Fred Harvey enterprise, whether looking for history about the man or his legacy. Appetite for America has a wealth of information in a most readable format. I'm often leery of journalist-written history, but Stephen Fried did his homework. He adds new details to the standard story that gets told over and over, particularly the civilizing the West theme, and he contextualizes the chronology of the Fred Harvey empire within local, national, and world events.
This is the first account I've read of the influence—good and bad—of the heirs, and a heady account of Freddy's and Kitty's (Fred's grandchildren)romantic and aeronautic proclivities…ahead of their time. I was surprised to learn, too, just how wealthy the generations of Harveys became and the Hollywood lifestyle they lived.
Two not-so-pretty points Fried successfully makes are that despite Fred Harvey's successful promotion of women in the workplace—which truly did make for new and adventurous opportunities—their employment was at the expense of black workers, whose place they took, and most notably, women were never part of the Fred Harvey high level of decision makers. Yes, Mary Colter (architect) had magnificent influence, creative genius, and a free hand in designing the "face" of the Harvey Houses, and yes, Alice Steele ("the woman who hires the Harvey Girls") certainly held sway when it came to the behavior and appearance of the Harvey Girls workforce, but no woman was allowed, ever, to be on the board.
This is a big book to read, but one that was a delight to return to day after day.
This is the first account I've read of the influence—good and bad—of the heirs, and a heady account of Freddy's and Kitty's (Fred's grandchildren)romantic and aeronautic proclivities…ahead of their time. I was surprised to learn, too, just how wealthy the generations of Harveys became and the Hollywood lifestyle they lived.
Two not-so-pretty points Fried successfully makes are that despite Fred Harvey's successful promotion of women in the workplace—which truly did make for new and adventurous opportunities—their employment was at the expense of black workers, whose place they took, and most notably, women were never part of the Fred Harvey high level of decision makers. Yes, Mary Colter (architect) had magnificent influence, creative genius, and a free hand in designing the "face" of the Harvey Houses, and yes, Alice Steele ("the woman who hires the Harvey Girls") certainly held sway when it came to the behavior and appearance of the Harvey Girls workforce, but no woman was allowed, ever, to be on the board.
This is a big book to read, but one that was a delight to return to day after day.
July 28, 2024
One of my weird obsessions…
August 3, 2017
An exhaustive biography of entrepreneur, restaurateur and hotelier Fred Harvey and his descendants, who developed a chain of reliable hostelries a generation or two before Howard Johnson fried his first clam. Like HoJo’s, Fred Harvey restaurants became beloved because they offered predictable, comfortable dining experience to the traveler in the still-rudimentary southwestern United States.
This is a history of a business in symbiotic relationship with the expansion of railroads and the formation of new communities in the West. The company’s success was a product of its customer focus, insistence on quality, and the loyalty of its employees. ‘Fred Harvey girls,’ like mill girls in Lowell, had independent, ‘respectable’ lives, which was saying something in the early 20th century.
The Harvey family and their employees were instrumental in bringing Hopi and Navajo art and architecture to the attention of the rest of the country, and in preserving some of the more important cultural sites around Santa Fe. Overall they seem to have been a force for good in a rough-shod time.
This is a history of a business in symbiotic relationship with the expansion of railroads and the formation of new communities in the West. The company’s success was a product of its customer focus, insistence on quality, and the loyalty of its employees. ‘Fred Harvey girls,’ like mill girls in Lowell, had independent, ‘respectable’ lives, which was saying something in the early 20th century.
The Harvey family and their employees were instrumental in bringing Hopi and Navajo art and architecture to the attention of the rest of the country, and in preserving some of the more important cultural sites around Santa Fe. Overall they seem to have been a force for good in a rough-shod time.
June 28, 2021
While it took me a while to read this book, it wasn't due to the writing or the story. There is just a lot to the life and legacy of Fred Harvey. Overall, I'd say the book was transporting. Not just as the intended pun about railroads and travel in general, but also with great language and detail that puts you in the time and place of the story. It makes me want to go places and take trips and experience new things, just like the people did in this time period. I learned so much in this book and it reminded me of trips I'd taken and makes me want to take more. If nothing else, living in the heart of where Harvey's life happened helped me see his journey a little differently and makes me want to explore as much of it that still exists as possible.
June 14, 2014
I've always loved trains and eating. Throw in a bunch of turn of the century history with interesting characters, Indians and cowboys, and an admirable family who ran their business in an ethical way with high standards and you have the story of the Fred Harvey empire. After reading this book, I want to take a trip to the Grand Canyon and to the La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This book made me wish I'd experienced the days when the railroad was king.
November 17, 2019
Fascinating, enjoyable reading that brought back memories of visiting some of the Fred Harvey locations that were still in business when I was a child and a teenager. Made me want to take a driving trip to visit the remaining, restored hotels and restaurants. Many current companies could benefit and gain valuable insights from studying the business philosophy and practices of Fred Harvey and his son Ford.
December 5, 2015
What a fascinating story of the guy who invented fast food, chain hotels and restaurants, and opened up the wonders of train travel and the Southwest. Great social, historical, and cultural details; engaging anecdotal style; wonderful family and business saga
January 22, 2025
This book was absolutely amazing! Full of so many crazy and interesting facts, just fantastic!!
2025 Reread: still amazing and still learning new things! I'm also still mad at Byron Harvey 😅 Cant wait to discuss this with my book club next week!
2025 Reread: still amazing and still learning new things! I'm also still mad at Byron Harvey 😅 Cant wait to discuss this with my book club next week!
July 21, 2011
An interesting concept about Fred Harvey but too detailed with dates, names and places. It made slow going and not very interesting in the long run. I scanned the last two thirds.
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