“Girls Wanted: for Service at the Fred Harvey Houses”
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“Girls Wanted: For Service at the Fred Harvey Houses” by Brenna Stewart Dugan, B.A. A Thesis In HISTORY Submitted to the Graduate Faculty Of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for The Degree of MASTERS OF ARTS Approved Dr. Julie Willett Chairman of the Committee Dr. Alwyn Barr Fred Hartmeister Dean of the Graduate School December, 2008 Texas Tech University, Brenna Stewart Dugan, December 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES iii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. MAINTAINING QUALITY REGARDLESS OF COST 10 III. THE HARVEY GIRL: THE KIND YOU MARRY 31 IV. THE PORTRAIT OF A HARVEY GIRL 51 V. END OF THE LINE 69 BIBLIOGRAPHY 83 ii Texas Tech University, Brenna Stewart Dugan, December 2008 LIST OF FIGURES 1. Photograph of Slaton Harvey House Male Employees. 39 2. Photograph of Slaton Harvey House Employees. 39 3. Photograph of the Slaton Harvey Girls. 43 4. Photograph of the Slaton Harvey House. 45 5. Portrait of a Harvey Girl. 58 6. The second portrait of a Harvey Girl. 61 7. Photograph of the railroad construction, 1912. 73 8. Advertisement selling lots in Slaton. 74 9. Newstand in the Slaton Harvey House. 75 10. Slaton Harvey House Main Room, 2008. 80 11. Slaton Harvey House Bed and Breakfast, 2008. 80 12. Renovated Slaton Harvey House. 82 iii Texas Tech University, Brenna Stewart Dugan, December 2008 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION “I never dreamed that anybody would ever be interested in knowing anything about it or I would have made notes."1 In the 1946 movie The Harvey Girls Judy Garland helped to romanticize the Fred Harvey Houses and the women who worked there by singing “Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.” The movie follows a group of women who have signed on to become Harvey Girls in the Southwestern desert town of Sandrock, Mountain Territory. Their reasons for traveling west are as numerous as the number of girls on the train. As the train nears Sandrock, Sonora Cassidy declares, “A Harvey Girl is more than a waitress. Wherever there is a Harvey House, civilization is not far behind.” Cassidy‟s simple declaration was the foundation the Harvey House has lived on years after the restaurants closed. Not all of the citizens of Sandrock were happy about the arrival of the Harvey establishment and the changes the house brought with it. The owner and dancers at the local saloon tried their best to close down the restaurant, going as far as stealing the steaks, shooting into the living quarters at night, and turning a snake loose in the girls‟ rooms. Unfortunately for them, the Harvey Girls fought back and restored order to the Harvey House. In the end, true love fell on Judy Garland and she left her job to settle in Sandrock with one of 1 Molly Johnson, interview by author, 22 March 2003, Jenks, Oklahoma, tape recording. 1 Texas Tech University, Brenna Stewart Dugan, December 2008 its more noted residents, leaving the impression that romance could always be found by traveling to new places.2 Harvey Girls have been remembered in movies, poems, songs, stories, and countless books. While the idea that adventure brings romance is not new, the idea of the Harvey Girls and their ability to “civilize” the West has allowed such romanticism to reach a new level. However, the movie is true to point in the fact that the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe realized the importance and profitability of decent, if not luxurious, accommodations along it route. The movie also depicts people who were clamoring to travel west which led to the settlement of towns, especially in the vicinity of train depots. This realization led to an agreement between Fred Harvey and the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe to build and support the restaurants that became known as the Harvey Houses. Eventually, the Harvey Houses became famous not only for the affordable and appetizing dinners, but for the women who served them, the Harvey Girls, who like in the movie, went west for jobs, adventure, and sometimes romance. Regardless of their reasons, Harvey Girls just like Judy Garland‟s character, were often called upon to save the day, although admittedly in less dramatic fashion.3 There has been little research on the Harvey Girls‟ experiences and work culture in the 1930s and 1940s. The introduction of the Harvey Houses along the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe is legendary and dates back to 1876. The book that most influenced this study was Lesley Poling-Kempes‟ The Harvey Girls Women Who Opened the West. As did the books by Juddi Morris‟ The Harvey Girls The Women Who 2 George Sidney, The Harvey Girls, (California: Warner Brothers, 1945), motion picture. 3 Ray Glass, “A Slice of Slaton History: Restoration brings Harvey House back to life.” Lubbock Avalanche Journal, 7 March 2003, Sec. B, p. 2. 2 Texas Tech University, Brenna Stewart Dugan, December 2008 Civilized the West and George H. Foster and Peter C. Weiglin‟s book The Harvey House Cookbook: Memories of Dining Along The Santa Fe Railroad, which examined the women and food that were a part of the Fred Harvey Houses.4 Other books helped with the topics of gender, work culture, and class.5 Up until the twentieth century most wait staff was male. Waitresses could occasionally be found in boarding houses, music halls, and private clubs, but male wait staff was found in the majority of restaurants. By adding women to the workforce, interaction between the workers and the customers changed greatly. 6 Starting in 1883, women were employed to serve the meals to the customers bringing on a new phenomenon in food service worldwide. In the beginning, women were closely supervised, but this began to change in the later years of the restaurant‟s history. Women working, especially in a service industry, should not surprise too many people. Women have worked for years, only it was usually within the confines of the home. Initially, women who worked outside the home had jobs that were most often not considered respectable.7 A job, especially waiting tables, placed women in the company of men, and if not closely monitored, allowed one to believe that this contact could lead to immoral acts.8 With an ingenious management style and attractive waitresses, the Harvey Houses rode to fame and legend in the American West. Fred Harvey, by moving 4 Lesley Poling-Kempes, The Harvey Girls Women Who Opened The West (New York: Marlowe & Company, 1991); Judi Morris, The Harvey Girls: The Women Who Civilized the West (New York: Walker and Company, 1994); George H. Foster and Peter C. Weiglin, The Harvey House Cookbook: Memories of Dining Along The Santa Fe Railroad (Atlanta: Longstreet Press, 1992). 5 Dorothy Sue Cobble, Dishing It Out: Waitresses and Their Unions in the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991); Alice Kessler-Harris, Out To Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789-1860 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1986); 5 Alison Owings, Hey, Waitress! The USA From the Other Side Of The Tray (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002) 6 Cobble, 25. 7 Kessler-Harris, 75. 8 Cobble, 24. 3 Texas Tech University, Brenna Stewart Dugan, December 2008 “respectable” women west, shaped millions of lives while achieving legendary success for his company that is still remembered today. Along with archival material, oral histories provide the basis for much of my research. I began by putting together the questions which would make up the foundation of my project. While the code of conduct had changed by the twentieth century, it is plausible that the reasons women began to work at the Harvey Houses had also begun to change. I wanted to find out more about why the women became Harvey girls. Were the reasons truly about the adventures the west had to offer? Thousands of women traveled west in the service of Fred Harvey, but what were their reasons and why did some of the women remain in the west while others returned to their families? Questions arose around those who continued to live in the west, such as, were they escaping trouble at home or did they find spouses out west and begin families of their own? Obviously the women were paid for their employment. This leads to the question of whether finances were the reason women took jobs as Harvey Girls. Did Harvey Girls keep their pay or did they send it to their families? All of these questions lead to even more questions relating to why the Harvey Houses became legendary and why, after 100 years, the restaurant is still remembered. I found that Harvey employees gave a much more direct and personal view of the various changes in their work culture, especially when women were added to the wait staff. Maintaining respectability and morality is in part why many have assumed there was such strict supervision of the Harvey Girls. Yet, the oral histories that I conducted reveal that their lives were actually less restricted and controlled than what had been 4 Texas Tech University, Brenna Stewart Dugan, December 2008 reported. The Fred Harvey Company may have found employees they considered to be morally upstanding and loyal and hence a great benefit to its image and success, but the Harvey Girls shaped much of their work culture. To be sure, the research may be limited by the fact that the former employees were in their 80‟s to 90‟s, but I have found they could still recall crucial facts about their employment.