REMEMBERING THE HARVEY GIRLS AND HOW THEY TAMED THE WILD WEST

1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories & Mysteries Podcast

Jon Hagadorn

Society & Culture, History

4.4 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 22 June 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

By 1880 the ATS&F Railroad had laid tracks from Kansas City to California- and people and products were starting to move through the still untamed west. Food along the way, however, was a spotty proposition, and the railroad was faced with a dilemma. Cooks were hard to keep employed, and waiters were hard to find. Thats when Fred Harvey, who had emigrated from England to the US at age 15 and got into the restaurant, and then the train business- saw an opportunity. He went to the offices of the Atcheson, Yopeka, & Santa Fe Railroad and offered them a plan. If the railroads would give him the dining cars and let him upgrade the stops every hundred miles or so- he (Harvey) would provide first class food services. It was a win-win. But Harvey didn't stop tghere. He placed ads in central US newspapers looking for educated, proper young ladies who were willing to head west with the railroads while working for a select group of upscale restaurants. Many young girls who saw no future in their lives outside of farm and domestic work lept at the opportunity- and the Harvey Girls were born.

This is their story.

Citations and Sources:

1 Setting the Standard: The Harvey Girls. Exhibition, New Mexico History Museum, 2020. https://www.nmhistorymuseum.org/exhibition/details/1950/setting-the-standard-the-fred-harvey-company-and-its-legacy.
2 Ibid.
3Ibid.

4 "Winslow Harvey Girls - Oral Histories: Lucy Delgadillo Moore, Dorothy Hunt and Janice Stewart" by Robin White, Phyllis Kachinhongva, and Michael Quinn, Grand Canyon National Park. Mar 24, 2005. https://vimeo.com/193114476.

5 "Roy and Edna Lemons - Oral History Interview" by Michael Quinn, Grand Canyon National Park. September 7, 1995, https://www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm?id=FBEC96EC-0899-4EB5-9785-A28BFE960084.
6 Lesley Polling-Kempes. The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West (Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Press, 1989), 87.

7 "Winslow Harvey Girls - Oral Histories: Lucy Delgadillo Moore, Dorothy Hunt and Janice Stewart".
8 Colleen Lucero. When I Worked for Fred Harvey: The Hopi Harvey Project. Exhibition, 2014.
9 Setting the Standard: The Harvey Girls. Exhibition.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The Welcome back, everyone to one thousand one heroes, legends, histories, and mysteries
0:36.0	podcast. This is your host and storyteller, John Haggardorn.
0:40.3	The first thing that came to my mind after seeing this story is that Winchester and Colt might have won the West,
0:47.4	but it was the Harvey Girls who settled it. Welcome to 1001 heroes. Today we're exploring a unique chapter in U.S. history about a group of
0:58.1	women who changed the face of travel, hospitality, and culture in the Wild West. They were
1:04.3	pioneers. With starched aprons, strict rules, and courage in their hearts, they came west by train and helped bring order,
1:12.6	civility, and charm to a rough and tumble land. These women were single, educated women
1:18.9	between the ages of 18 and 30 with a reputation for good character. They served as waitresses
1:25.2	in Harvey houses, known for their high standards of service and the pleasant dining experience they provided.
1:31.6	They played a large role in opening up the West and were among the first large group of women in America to have jobs outside the home.
1:39.4	They were the Harvey girls.
1:42.0	Stay with us because this is more than just a story about waitresses.
1:45.7	It's about women who reshaped the American West. Join us today where railroads rumble,
1:51.9	legends live, and stories from the American West unfold like pages from a dusty diary.
1:57.6	Today we're bringing you a tale of grit, grace, and the women who help tame the Wild West,
2:03.3	not with guns, but with menus and manners.
2:06.9	Just imagine it.
2:08.2	The late 1800s, steam trains cut across the prairie.
2:12.3	Towns rise out of the dust.
2:14.6	Cowboys, miners, and railroad men fill the frontier with ambition and chaos.
2:19.3	And then, into this rough world, stepped women in crisp black dresses, starched white aprons,
2:25.2	and hair neatly tied in buns. For nearly a century, the Harvey Girls were America's unsung
	...

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