What was it like to be an American traveling cross-country in the late 1800s? According to Fred Harvey, it sucked. As Stephen Fried tells it in Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West, Harvey was fed up with the accommodations that lined the nation’s railways. So, over the next half-century, he built an empire of rail-side eateries and hotels that became famous for their service and quality. But that’s not all: Along the way, Harvey basically invented the Grand Canyon as a tourist destination, jump-started the American Indian preservation movement, helped develop the National Park system and even became one of the nation’s largest employers of women. Fried traces the growth of the Fred Harvey company from a hotel-and-restaurant chain to the huge conglomerate it became, using the narratives of the Harveys — Fred Harvey, son Ford and grandson Freddy — to guide the story. Along the way, the Harveys brush shoulders with some of American history’s most iconic figures: Susan B. Anthony, Charles Lindbergh, Jay Gould and Judy Garland (to name a few), as well as multiple presidents. The book is engagingly written and packed with fascinating information, including an appendix of original Fred Harvey recipes — the orange pancakes alone sound worthy of an empire.
— Sam Kaplan
http://citypaper.net/print-article.php?aid=21746

This article is copyright © 2024