The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West

by Lesley Poling-Kempes

Interviews, historical research, and photos recreate the Harvey Girl experience of women who came to the west to work as waitresses, but many stayed and settled, founding cattle and mining towns.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Westerns, Historical, American History, Food History

252 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

My writing life is completely connected to my daily life on the high desert of Abiquiu and northern New Mexico. Like my "Bone Horses" protagonist, Charlotte, I was born and raised in New York, specifically in Westchester County. Unlike Charlotte, I loved the wild vast empty desert and wide blue sky of the Southwest on sight. I was always working my way back home to this exotic, magnificent place. After college I moved full time into the Indio-Hispanic world of Abiquiu. I began to write the real and imagined stories of my adopted community, first in non-fiction books and then in my first novel "Canyon of Remembering" and now "Bone Horses."

For several decades my primary work was as a writer/historian. For my first 3 books ("The Harvey Girls", "Valley of Shining Stone", and "Ghost Ranch") I interviewed and talked with literally hundreds of old-timers all over the Southwest. I heard remarkable tales of the early days in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona. These are the foundation for all of my writing.

Reviews

[Rosalind · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good account of the Harvey Girls with personal narratives of those who worked as such. Interesting stories. Good explanation of the Santa Fe Railway and The Fred Harvey relationship. Pretty big enterprises at the turn of the 19th century and went down hill during WW II for getting the contract to feed the troop trains. With expanded auto travel in the 1950s, Harvey never could bounce back. Interesting stuff for people in the Southwest. At one point she says over 100,000 women worked as Harvey Girls from 1882 to 1970 or so. Before 1920, they were often the only white women in the region.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

FINALLY!
Stories about the women who were elemental during the development of this nation.

The book contains a significant history of the Fred Harvey start-up and the railroad partnership. It does add substance to the topic in the title but the title should have been "Fred Harvey and the Harvey Girls".

It is too bad that we don't have Fred Harvey standards in the existing establishments (i.e. the Painted Desert in Arizona) that carry his name. The service and food is just as mediocre and unappetizing as the chain businesses.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the time when I was reading this book, the question kept occurring to me "Did this book really need to be written?" When I finished it, I answered my own question "Yeah, sorta." The Paul Harvey restaurants, operated in conjunction with the Santa Fe railroad in the American west, did bring many women westward to work in the restaurants as Harvey Girls. Many of them married railroaders or ranchers and stayed in the west, bringing the numbers of women up during this frontier stage. Okay, a civilizing influence.

But oh, what a slog! Endless quotations from interchangeable Harvey Girls who worked at many of the restaurants from the turn of the 20th century (because earlier Harvey Girls were dead by the time this book was written) to the end of World War Two. I get it -- they worked very hard, and the Harvey House standards were impeccable, bringing civilized demeanor to this otherwise rough-and-tumble part of the country. But did the author really need to say that over and over and over and over and over again?

Plus the book is riddled with contradictions. In one paragraph the author will say that the Harvey Girls were midwestern farm girls with a need to earn money for themselves, and in the very next paragraph she'll say that many of them were middle class and didn't really need the jobs, they just had a thirst for adventure. I"m sure it was both, so why write in absolutes?

This was a Book Group selection; otherwise it's not a book I would have chosen.

[Bader Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pioneer !

Excellent story of civilizing the west through opportunity for young women-I loved the menu samples and timeline for the restaurants and hotels.

[Christopher Borum · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent history of an important yet little-known element of opening of the American West. It starts with a broad history of the Santa Fe Trail and the early incursions of Europeans into the deep Southwest. Then the author covers the development of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe line that followed roughly the old Trail route. Next the author introduces Fred Harvey and his grand plans to provide food service along the railroad and the expansion of Harvey House restaurants and the Harvey system, including the Harvey Girls who served as waitresses.

There are very few business records from the early Harvey House activities, and almost nothing from its founding in 1876. The author relies on personal recollections culled from newspaper articles and magazine stories with interviews of women who worked as Harvey Girls for the rest of the narrative. These reveal the experiences of the women who took on this role. These young women came from all over the Midwest, some looking simply for a job, others for adventure. Some stayed only a short time and returned home, some stayed 40 years or more. Many married railroadmen who worked the Santa Fe line and went off to raise families in the new American territories and states.

The author is sympathetic to her subject, painting the Harvey Girls as integral to making the West accessible and establishing settlements throughout the area. There is an argument that Euro-Americans shouldn't have been there at all, and wouldn't necessarily disagree, but we were, and the Harvey Houses and Harvey Girls were an important part of that story. Fred Harvey was particularly sensitive to the indigenous populations and did a lot to preserve and protect traditional crafts and activities. He amassed a huge collection of artifacts that eventually went to the Heard Museum in Phoenix, along with many other Harvey memorabilia. His chief architect, Mary Colter, often included Native motifs in her designs for Harvey Hotels.

The book closes with the decline of the Harvey Houses in the middle of the 20th century, a combination of factors including changes in technology, the rise of auto and air travel, and the Second World War. During the war, Harvey Houses and the Harvey Girls served millions of meals to soldiers heading off to serve. They were a critical part of the home front, but when the war ended, the Harvey House system was a relic of the past. Many of the buildings were destroyed or repurposed. Only a few, such as the El Tovar at Grand Canyon Village, continue in their original capacity.

I knew a little about the Harvey Girls before, but these interviews snippets and descriptions of their experience brought them to life and placed them in the their historic context.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the title suggests, this book is about the Harvey Girls, almost to a fault. So many of their stories are similar that they ran together in my head and I had a hard time keeping them all straight. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed this book. The "girls" were true pioneers in every sense of the word. That said, I would have appreciated more biographical info related to Fred Harvey, his sons, and Mary Coulter, as well as more information regarding the ultimate fate of the Harvey Corporation. The book contains loads of pictures, so suggest reading the book instead of the Kindle version to get the best look at them. Interesting, well researched story.

[Gramarye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Agreeing with several of the other reviews that the writing style is somewhat repetitive, but nonetheless an interesting book about a less-remembered aspect of American railroad history. I almost feel that the book might have been better served with more minutiae about the Harvey service and the style of the period -- its narrow focus on the women who served as Harvey Girls, while admirable, left me wanting a good deal more of this intriguing historical narrative.

[Nicole C. (using StoryGraph more these days) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very close to 4 stars, so rounded up.

I don't even recall how this got on my list, or where I even heard of the Harvey Girls in the first place. It wasn't the very romanticized movie with Judy Garland, which I only found out about later.

Anyway, when Americans decided to begin moving West and building the railroad, provisioning was a ramshackle, even crude affair. Maybe the "cowboys" didn't mind it, but what about more "genteel" folks, such as women? Fred Harvey, a British-born businessman, decided, like many before and after him, to standardize the way real travelers could eat and rest on their journeys. While Harvey Houses, as they came to be known, differed in their architecture and some of their cuisine, cleanliness, impeccable service, and fresh, delicious food were the standards everywhere.

That impeccable front-facing service was provided by the Harvey Girls. This book delves into the lives of Harvey Girls in their heyday - turn of the 20th century until about late 1940s - by interviews and personal correspondence with many people who worked for the Harvey "system," not just the girls, but busboys and chefs, too.

While the Harvey Girls had to obey some fairly strict rules (no makeup, no fraternizing with the men in the kitchen, hard curfews), they made very good wages in a time period when women had few career options and other waitressing jobs paid much less and were considered low-status - not to mention the rumors of prostitution! The Harvey Girls' room and board were provided, so they were able to save quite a bit, especially those with families to support back home. It also provided an experience for many women to get outside their hometown and learn about other places - Midwesterners to California, Chicagoans to New Mexico, and so on. Harvey provided a rail ticket to employees after they completed a certain contract term length, to visit home or anywhere else they wanted to go.

As rail service became less popular post World War II, most Harvey Houses closed due to lack of business. However, it's an interesting epoch in American history.

Appendix C has some sample menus from over the decades at the various Houses, which is also cool.

[Debra B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent ... a fascinating look at American history! Extra interesting as I lived near or traveled through many of the Harvey House locations in Southern California and along Interstate 40 in Arizona and New Mexico.

[Hadleigh McNay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Broadened my view of the civilization of the west, the Santé Fe railroad, and Fred Harvey’s impact on the popularity of the west.

[Laurie Smothermon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars ⭐️
Good information, but the audiobook was kinda of boring.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although repetitive in many places this was an interesting history intertwining history of the Santa Fe Trail and the railroad that followed it into the West. Along its tracks, Fred Harvey established lunchrooms, dining rooms and Harvey Houses in which he employed many on the staffs. The most visible of these employees were the young women who waited the tables or tended the lunchroom counters. Unfortunately, the history of the earliest of these women is lost to time but many of those who served between the 20's and WW II were available to tell of their experiences. The vintage photos are poignant since most of the elegant rooms depicted are no longer in existence. Having served the traveling public before the advent of the personal automobile and airlines they became obsolete and so were,for the most part, razed. With the death of the railroad came the death of many of the towns as well. I've been through many of them, have stayed in a few such as Gallup, Winslow, Williams, Raton, Las Vegas and Holbrook. I've sat on the lovely porch of El Tovar and walked its lobby. I can only imagine what the Harvey Houses in these other towns must have been like.

Vaughn,NM is a street of deserted Rte 66 motels and yet once it had a Harvey House with a dining room filled with elegant wooden tables and chairs covered with linen and silver and crystal and china all illuminated with beautiful chandeliers and sun through windows of small glass panes. Today there is not even the footprint of where that building stood. Sometimes, though, the freight trains pass through and blow their whistles--if you close your eyes and listen you can almost hear the voices of the ghostly passengers stepping off to have a meal before moving on West.

[Charlene Intriago · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had not heard of the "Harvey Girls" until my neighbor loaned me this book. Interesting account of how the train systems developed from Missouri to California. Even more interesting how an English immigrant named Fred Harvey realized all those people traveling by train would be stopping at train depots and would need a place to get a good meal. He had high standards. He built restaurants and hotels, hired mostly young women as waitresses, and this book tells their story. A good book with a small slice of American history - the role railroads played from the late 1800s to about 1960, how small towns and cities sprang up along the rail lines, the opportunity the Harvey Houses gave young women to find jobs and strike out on their own, how the women lived and worked, the demise of the rail system with the building of roads, automobiles, and the advent of air travel.

[kathleen creedon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounded down. This book was exactly what I was looking to read when I visited the Grand Canyon. I wanted something wistful but real about the kind of mythical version of the national park in the early 20th century. I think the author did s great job keeping what is basically a sociological study interesting and relevant, and I appreciated the ways she called out how exclusionary the Harvey system was to non-white workers. I have more thoughts about the obsession and fixation people (me) have for the Wild West and how that’s actually really bad sometimes, but they’re not thoughts for Goodreads.

[Scott]

This was a good book, please do not let the fact that I didn't finish it stop you from reading it. Once it got into the personal stories of the Harvey Girls, the stories became similar and alike. Fred Harvey ran a chain of hotels and restaurants along the Santa Fe Railroad when the West was being settled. The women who worked at those restaurants were called Harvey Girls. The book gave a good history of the women who moved west to work at these places.

[Roxanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I now live in Kansas where we have tons of railroad tracks so they had a lot of Harvey Girl places here and I have been to many of those towns. The Harvey Girls worked as waittresses along the rail lines from the 1880's to the 1950's. At that not too many lived or worked in the West.Some of the women stayed and became the mothers and fathers of the West. I never knew that before.

[Jewels · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a great read! I have been trying to read more non-fiction lately. With that in mind, I learned alot from this book. It was very interesting to read about the advent of the railroad and the adventerous women that went west with it. It was enjoyable to read about the southwest and the original Harvey Houses we have in Northern Arizona.

[John E · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of an interesting experiment in the history of the American Southwest. I loved the story of adventuresome, mobile, young women and their dedication and life on their own in a society that was not ready for women to undertake what they did. Somewhat repetitious, but moving.

[Suzie Deborah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author wrote more about the Santa Fe Railroad and why it was built than about the Harvey Girls. I was expecting more stories from Harvey girls than this. It's a good book for people that have an interest in the building and history of railroads.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first, I thought it needed editing -- too redundant, then it dawned on me (sometimes it takes a while) -- she was relating the memories of girls from almost every one of the Harvey Houses along the line.

Mary Colter worked with Fred Harvey, so that added another dimension of interest.

[Jon McDonald]

Very interesting as I live in Santa Fe and it sheds light on the history of Santa Fe. Very sad to read about the destruction of some the the great grand hotels torn down later.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Harvey House restaurants, shops and hotels that sprung up along the railroad tracks in the late 1800s and early 1900s dramatically improved the comfort of passengers and helped open the west to tourism. It was Fred Harvey's vision, but it was his employees, especially the Harvey Girls, who brought it to life.

Lesley Poling-Kempes' book is a great account of the rise and fall of the Harvey enterprises, starting with the the building of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railway at a time when there were "no ladies west of Dodge City and no women west of Albuquerque."

To entice the servers he needed to staff his operations, Harvey recruited adventurous young women, trained them, dressed them modestly, gave them room and board and a salary and got them to work on demand, even when it was 14 hours a day. The package made being a Harvey Girl socially acceptable even when being an ordinary waitress was not.

I enjoyed reading about the lives of the Harvey Girls, the growth of the operation and its ultimate demise as cars replaced trains as the tourists' preferred mode of transportation. Many of the thousands of women who worked as Harvey Girls never went back East. Instead, they married other Harvey or railroad employees and local ranchers and miners, helping build the west.

The book is based in large part of letters and diaries of Harvey girls and the memories of their children. As such, it sometimes get repetitive as the women recount why they chose to leave home and head west even though it meant long shifts in the restaurants. Of course a big part of it was that so few job opportunities were available to women. Being a Harvey Girl was an escape route from the confines of parental control and housework and an opportunity to see another part of the world.

[MaryJo Dawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a wonderful read for anyone who enjoys reading about the history of the western United States. And it was especially meaningful to me, because I have lived in the part of the country where the Santa Fe Railroad built many of their Harvey Houses. Most of the names in New Mexico, southern Colorado, and in northern Arizona where very familiar. In fact La Posada in Winslow has been restored since this book was written and I've spent the night there.

My only regret is that the author could not find out more about the Harvey Girls who worked in the very early days of their inception, in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first two of the twentieth.
Fred Harvey's realization that decent food and eateries would be a boon for the railroad and southwest brought the need for respectable and reliable help to staff them. Thus the inception of The Harvey Girls.
But whether he realized it or not, it also opened up a whole new world for the women who were hired, for thousands of them. And virtually all of them said their lives changed for the better.
That is quite a testimonial.

The stories of these ladies, that span about forty years until railroad travel went into decline, are well worth reading about.

[Michaila · Rating 4 out of 5]

It didn't take me too long to abandon my original plan of only reading excerpts with this one. The author kept narration interesting and upbeat enough that it captured my curiosity, deciding to read the whole book. I was not disappointed.

I found myself so encouraged by these women, the Harvey Girls. They were not all grown women, some were only fourteen years old when they left family and friends to go into the new, strange West. And what inspired me was their bravery, seemingly coming from nowhere - many had never left Kansas farms - to work in a position most adults felt was not right, or safe. But the risks brought rewards of independence, freedom, travel, and the mutual support of their peers. A large number of women could not dream of traveling West alone, supporting themselves while keeping respect and health, and marrying past thirty, yet Harvey girls accomplished all this while earning women a new reputation in a new world.

This was also extremely educational. Anyone who's looking for a non-fiction, historical read in the categories of brave women, coming of age, opening the American West, and early railroads should try the Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West.

[Eugenio Negro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and detailed story of how we came to see the American Southwest as we do, that the post-freeway, post-airline US badly needs to remember. This paired with Mike Davis' City of Quartz really does make a great crash course in the 1880s-1920s finish to "manifest destiny" that our education and media systems almost categorically skip.
With that in mind, a few elaborations would have been very valuable. The author says things like "women did very well," when it would only have taken a few more words in print to give an example of what things cost then, etc., to complement her comparisons of wages and attitudes toward womens' work. In a similar way, chapter 5 rather drops the ball on placing the post-Chicago Worlds' Fair interest in Native Americans' stuff within the context of the US having just finished screwing and killing Native Americans out of the last available land right then. In chapter 4 she mentions Oklahoma and almost completes the picture, but no luck.
In any case, an exciting and important book that since its 1990 publication more than deserves an update to make its case even stronger.

[Maura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative book. Fred Harvey got tired of suffering from bad food or no food available when traveling on trains in the American west. Trains may have opened the American west to white settlement, but travelers had to be almost as hardy as those who had once traveled by horse and wagon. There was no food service on trains, barely any stations along the route, and trains were often delayed for long periods, essentially stranding passengers in the middle of nowhere. Harvey solved the problem by opening a chain of lunch counters and restaurants along the railroads, designed to serve passengers a good quality hot meal in the 20 minutes or so that the train was stopped. The women who worked as waitresses were known as Harvey girls, and this book tells their stories in excerpts from interviews and letters. It's also the story of Harvey himself, who preferred to lose money operating his houses rather than cut quality. Still, he worked a deal with the Sante Fe RR that made the whole system work very well. Fascinating slice of history.

[Kathleen McRae · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a story I knew nothing about and found it fascinating from more than one perspective. It is women's history and was presented in this book as being a superior alternative for women at the time ,mainly because of the restrictions that were imposed on females of that era.This book did not shy away from pointing out the discrimination women faced the restrictions on dress, deportment and employment.It is also a good description of the opening up of the west and the hard times faced by people. It also points out the discrimination faced by people who were not white and that includes men and women. I also found it interesting that many of these girls were emancipated as to what they were capable of and if their lives had been written about as extensively as men's were it would be interesting to find out what effect it had on their lives.Unfortunately women were frequently disappeared as a person once their role as a Harvey girl had ended.

[Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent history of the Harvey Girls 1880-1950. Working along the Santa Fe Railroad, Harvey houses and hotels employed thousands of women in an era when 95% of adult females were homemakers. Using historical data and firsthand accounts of women employed as Harvey Girls at that time, the book recollects the first real large-scale empowerment of women in America. There are several poignant photos of employees and grand buildings, many of which still stand today and are registered as Historical Landmarks.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn the history of so many buildings I've visited in New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The book really opened my eyes to how valuable Harvey Houses were to the expansion of the West. Not to mention, the monumental influence they had on female independence, equality and entrepreneurship.

If you live in the Southwest or have an interest in the evolution of the roles of women and their stereotypes in America, this book is a must read.

[James S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating glimpses into the lives of these women in the first half of the 20th century as well as the unique confluence of circumstances that created the Harvey Houses and the Harvey System. The Harvey Houses (and the system that lay underneath them) provided these women with opportunities they didn't otherwise have for livelihoods, education, and travel. America has lost something with the demise of things like Harvey Houses and Civilian Conservation Corps. Today, only the military provides young people with the same kind of environment: a structured and supervised introduction into full adulthood and independence; a shared, hard-work, experience among peers. While they were not perfect (importantly, neither provided the same opportunities to all Americans, especially people of color), I still wish we could restart an (improved) version of these for young Americans.

[Lyle Radke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone interested in the history of the American southwest will appreciate this book. That said, it has an unusual flow. Some parts, particularly the beginning and the end, summarize many years of history from the perspective of the railroad. I found that to be very easy to follow. The middle chapters are less chronological, more thematic or geographical, and hop around a lot from time to time and place to place. If you like raw history, the book contains a lot of quotes from oral interviews with former Harvey Girls and their associates. One disappointment is that the book often refers to the Harvey system, but never really spells out exactly what that consisted of. Overall, though, I learned a lot and really enjoyed this book.