Just got in after a wonderful evening with the Jewish Harvey Girls of St. Louis (those are handmade outfits, and they also baked a kosher version of the the Harvey oatmeal-raisin cookie recipe from the book). If you’re in the KC area, please join us at the National Archives tonight!
It’s 8:50 pm on a Tuesday night, pitch black outside our train car as we speed southeast across Illinois, whistle moaning, just beyond the lights of springfield, on the train whose name comes from that city’s most famous citizen: the Lincoln Service, between Chicago and St. Louis. This is a train that Fred Harvey himself took often—probably even when Lincoln was still alive—and a route that defined the western frontier of big-city life before the country and its railroads began expanding west after the Civil War. Diane and I are here on the first leg of the train book tour we always dreamed about doing during those many, many, many years she was frediting and I was rewriting Appetite for America.
We just finished two busy, dizzying days in Chicago, starting with the book launch party at the Chicago History Museum—where we met not only a lot of Harveys, but quite a few same-name descendants of other Chicago legends who populated Fred’s world (such as hotelier Potter Palmer, whose top chef Fred swiped for the boutique restaurant/hotel in tiny Florence, KS that first cemented his international culinary reputation.) They combined our event with the dedication of the handsome new Guild Room, so we had a wonderful turnout of well over 100 people—even though we were up against the NCAA final. They served hors d’ouevres inspired by recipes in the book, including little cups of mac n’ cheese, grilled cheese sliders (very post-modern comfort food), little thimbles of rissoto topped with spicy shrimp, all delicious and served by waitresses not exactly sure why they were wearing conductors hats, but amused nonetheless. I gave a talk using pictures from the book and photos I took of Fred’s actual datebooks and stuff before I had to give them back to the Harveys, who graciously loaned me Fred and Ford’s belongings for many years.
After the event, Daggett Harvey, Jr, great-grandson of Fred, drove us back to our hotel—the Ambassador East, home of the famed Pump Room. Just days before we arrived the hotel had been sold to Ian Schrager, who I’m certain will do something extraordinary with it. But, in the meantime, the staff has been left in an unenviable state of hospitality limbo. They took great care of us, I must say, at an almost “Mr. Gladstone” level of familiarity and service, but there was a bit of a Dead Bellman Walking vibe in the place, and we were the only customers of the once vaunted Pump Room, where the staff outnumbered us. I hope Schrager does save the place, and that all the people who took care of us there get to be part of the institution’s glorious future. A good hotel staff is a terrible thing to waste.
The big evening event was followed today by a more intimate lunch for 35 at the Chicago Club, where George Pullman and all the top Chicago railroaders were early members (and, of course, a Pullman descendant was at the lunch.) Daggett, our host for the lunch, presented me with my own Chicago Club tie (which I am told either gets me into the club whenever I want, or gives me magic powers, or both), and then just blew me away with a gift from his own family collection of Harvey memorabilia. He presented me with one of Fred Harvey’s actual etched champagne glasses. It’s exquisite (the phone pic below doesn’t do it justice) and I immediately had it shipped home for fear I would break it during one of the many train rides we’ll be on in the next weeks.
After lunch I was interviewed by the immortal Milt Rosenberg at WGN, and then we headed to Union Station. The Amtrak bowels of the station are crazy crowded, but unlike Penn Station in New York, all the people are nice. We were herded onto train 305, sent to the clean, well-lit car going all the way to St. Louis, and settled back to watch Chicago, and then northern Illinois pass as the sun fell over the still very marshy and mushy Midwest. We bought a couple of Coronas at the well-stocked bar (not much food, but quite a few imported beers … priorities), and enjoyed the fading daylight with our incredibly diverse fellow passengers: I’ve only overheard one cell-phone conversation in English. My favorite image was an Eastern European young man, very Chekov (Star Trek, not theater), traveling with his young blonde son. When I went to the bar, he was sitting stone-faced with a brightly colored sticker his kid had just planted on his forehead. When I returned from the bar, he was still sitting with the same blank look on his face, and now a second sticker was on his left cheek.
I love the America that reveals itself on the trains—just as it always has.
Women in Railroading and The Culinary Historians of Southern California
present
A Dinner and Chat with Stephen Fried author, Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West
Taylor’s Steak House in their historic upstairs dining room
Tuesday, April 20
6:30 P.M.
3361 W. Eighth Street (at Ardmore Ave.), Los Angeles
http://www.taylorssteakhouse.com/
RSVP to Katrina Parks katrinaparks@me.com or 323-203-5968 by April 13 with your menu specifications (see below).
MENU
Garden Salad, with choice of Ranch or Italian dressing
Choice of London Broil or Free Range Chicken, both served with mixed vegetables and a choice of Baked potato, mashed potato, french fries or cottage fries
Apple Pie or Chocolate Cake
Soft Drink
$35 including tax and tip, alcoholic beverages extra
Women in Railroading will have books available for Stephen Fried to sign, for the price of $27 (no tax).
Space is limited to the first 40 people to RSVP.
RSVP to Katrina Parks katrinaparks@me.com or 323-203-5968 by April 13.
Who was Fred Harvey? This delicious biography serves up a very satisfying picture of the headache-plagued Englishman who came to the USA in the 1850s, landed work as a pot scrubber, then, writes Stephen Fried, started a business feeding train passengers in the Wild West along the Santa Fe Railway.
Fried calls Harvey the founding father of the American service industry, writing that Harvey “created the first national chain of restaurants, of hotels, of newsstands and of bookstores — in fact, the first national chain of anything — in America” and “developed the first widely known and respected brand name in America,” years before Coca-Cola.
Harvey’s amazing story is a tale of trailblazing entrepreneurship in trying circumstances, of the “Harvey Girls,” waitresses who were the country’s first major female workforce, and of the cowboys and legends who peppered the Wild West. Fried’s comprehensive book even includes recipes pulled straight from Harvey’s “cookbooks.”
We’re headed for Chicago this afternoon to start our train tour along the original Santa Fe route, 11 cities in 17 days from Chicago to LA! Follow the trip on my FB author page, or here on the blog. And hope to see new friends and old in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Topeka, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Phoenix, Williams, Grand Canyon, Winslow and LA. Back in time for April 21 appearance at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Whoo whoo!
And here’s a photo from the collection of a great friend of the book, Gordon Chappell, to start the trip:
The other day we had the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania all to ourselves–it was closed to the public–for a photo shoot for an upcoming article in the Pennsylvania Gazette. amazing place with amazing trains, and we hung out mostly in an old Pullman car that was perfectly restored, down to the guest checks (for authenticity, I swapped in a Santa Fe dining car check I bought on ebay.) Here’s a picturephone shot of me just hanging around an old PA RR steam engine (built at the Baldwin Works in Philly) while terrific photographer Chris Crisman was setting up. I think the Museum is going to do an event for the book sometime in May or June–watch here, or on their site for details.
My cover story in Parade on America’s Greatest Train Rides got a huge response on parade.com and continues to spur lively trainiac debate. Several things are clear. I absolutely should have included the Empire Builder on the list of major Amtrak routes (and now, after so many readers have suggested it, Diane and I really want to make that trip.) And, while Amtrak insists that the rates for the Southwest Chief that we printed are accurate (and I know they were at publication time, because I tried to book the trip on Amtrak’s site at that rate and it let me), clearly the availability of those “best-available” rates has changed, and it is hard to get them. Most are finding the website quoting them rates twice as high, which stinks. I think the piece just happened to run when Amtrak re-did a lot of its rates: I’ve found that the train I take to NY each week to teach at Columbia now has an even lower “best-available” rate, but the tickets at that rate run out so quickly you usually end up paying more than ever. And I suspect that’s happening across the sytem–mostly to get people to reserve earlier.
But, back to greatest train rides–what is your favorite? I ask this as Diane and I prepare to depart for the train book tour for Appetite for America, which kicks off at the Chicago History Museum on April 5, and then we’ll be on the train to St. Louis April 6.
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
Steve…. and Diane,
Just started reading “Fred” and found it hard to sit down, your details are phenomenal and so interesting! Wish I’d have had a history teacher like you in high school, I would have definetly paid attention.
Have a wonderful “Fred journey”, hope you don’t mind if I tag along via your blog! Add me to the list of “newbie trainiacs”. Sending you lots of good karma for your trip. 
BTW, your book “Husbandry” was so entertaining and insightful! FYI, our cat “Harvey” has a new nickmame: Fred.
“Engrossing … part biography and part corporate history, Fried weaves a sprawling story of one of the country’s first self-made millionaire families. … As Fried shows in his energetic narrative, the people who crossed Fred Harvey’s path are worthy of a Cecil B. DeMille movie: Bat Masterson and Billy the Kid, George M. Pullman and architect Mary Colter, great railroaders such as William Barstow Strong and Edward P. Ripley; Kansas City’s Pendergast political machine and one of its notable subjects, Harry S. Truman; even Charles Lindbergh and Judy Garland. Fried fills his story with scores of wonderful anecdotes–especially involving the famous ‘Harvey Girl’ waitresses–that bring life to the details of the Harveys’ business and personal lives.”
–Kevin Keefe, publisher, TRAINS magazine, May issue
Jane and Michael Stern just posted their very kind New York Times review of the book on their excellent blog roadfooddigest.com, along with a great picture of the kinds of double rainbows that draw all of us to the Southwest–which is where my wife and I first discovered Fred. Check it out.
Nice piece in the Albuquerque Journal on Fred and the book. You can link to it at http://www.abqjournal.com/cgi-bin/print_it.pl?page=/north/venuenorth/29223511northvenue03-29-10.htm. But since the paper’s website is kinda hard to deal with and read from (and because the piece has a typo that I’d rather not help proliferate) I’m going to suggest you read it in its syndicated, corrected version here
My friends at the Daily Beast asked me to do a foodie piece about Fred as the original Ray Kroc. You can read it here.
Some of you have already seen my cover story in Parade magazine on America’s Greatest Train Rides and have offered questions, comments, and outrage over worthy trains overlooked. I share your pain concerning the missing lines–Parade stories are short, and they always have to cut for space. A number of the railroads, like the Cumbres & Toltec in Chalma, NM, and the Branson Scenic Railway were in my original draft but ended up on the cutting room floor. But you can hear about them, and talk about them, here.
In fact, I’ll start with a photo sent from reader Bill Seager in Germantown, TN, a Cumbres fan who couldn’t believe I had overlooked it. Here’s his shot of the highest point on the train’s run.
Here’s a link to my Parade cover story on America’s Greatest Train Rides, inspired by our upcoming One Nation Under Fred train tour!