The Harvey Girls: Pioneers of Hospitality in the Wild West

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Who were The Harvey Girls? They were brave women who moved away from their homes, to work as waitresses, and paved the way for customer experience focused travel in the Wild West of the 1880’s. These adventurous women took a dive into the unknown and helped to make travel in the West more enjoyable, by serving delicious meals and bringing a touch of goodwill, compassion and generosity to a mostly unsettled land.

As a freight agent in the 1870s Fred Harvey spent a lot of his time traveling via train in an era before dining cars, and experienced first-hand the difficulty of finding good food and welcoming service. And so, recognizing a business opportunity, Harvey struck a deal with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway to operate a system of eateries along its rail lines. His first depot restaurant opened in Topeka, Kansas, in 1876.

Within two years, Harvey opened his first hotel and restaurant in Florence, Kansas, the foundation for what would grow into a hospitality empire. By 1891, 15 Harvey House restaurants were in operation.

Harvey went on to establish numerous restaurants under his Fred Harvey Company, which later operated several hotels and businesses at The Grand Canyon. The company worked with Mary Colter to design much of the exterior and interior of his establishments on the South Rim of Grand Canyon and at Phantom Ranch, at the bottom of the canyon.

Not only did Harvey create America’s first restaurant chain, but he was also a pioneer of cultural tourism. In the early 1900s, the Fred Harvey Company employed Native Americans to demonstrate rug weaving, pottery, jewellery making and other crafts at his Southwest hotels.

Then, in 1926, the Harvey Company began offering chauffeured interpretive tours in which guests at his Southwest hotels were ferried in comfortable Harvey Cars for one- to three-day excursions into Indian settlements in New Mexico and Arizona.

As part of the hotel and restaurant service staff, the Fred Harvey Company created the iconic Harvey Girls, who are often described as one of the first workforces made up of all women in the Southwest. They became famous for their impeccable service and were a signature component of Harvey’s success. He placed recruitment advertisements in Midwestern and Eastern publications, soliciting workers between the ages of 18 and 30 to travel west and work as waitresses in his restaurants.

Women came from all over the country to work as a Harvey Girls. The received meticulous training, wore matching uniforms comprised of black dresses with white aprons, and were provided room and board under The Fred Harvey Company.

Moving away from their families provided many of these women independence they would not have previously been granted. “Women were just trapped in the worlds they lived in because they had no independence – financial independence didn’t exist.” Said Zada Sharon, who worked as a waitress and Harvey Girl.

“I worked at the Bright Angel Lodge.” Said Dorothy Hunt. I worked for 12 years up there from 1946 to 1958. They made you feel like you belonged to the family. It was really an excellent place to work.”

While Fred Harvey was ahead of his time in many ways, he almost always hired white women to be Harvey Girls. At establishments in the Southwest, where Hispanic and Indigenous women made up a large part of the population, there was still very little recruitment from these communities. Most often women of colour were hired for the lowest paying jobs, such as laundress and cleaners, amongst other “back of house” positions.

In Arizona, one Harvey Girl recalls being assigned to train and work with the first Hispanic woman hired by the house manager during the 1930’s. “She was a wonderful person. The manager knew it, and I know a whole lot of people at the Harvey House knew it. But the railroad men threatened to leave if she stayed and worked. The manager ignored them. She stayed. And that was that. Things changed a little at a time.”

During the hardships of WWII, labour did indeed become harder to find and as such, hiring practices had to change within the company. Soon, The Fred Harvey Company began hiring women of Hispanic heritage as well as women from the Hopi, Zuni, and Navajo communities.

“I was delighted to be a Harvey Girl.” Said Lucy Delgadillo Moore. “I was there, I was Hispanic. I both knew and loved who I was. I explained nothing, I just went to work. And my work showed the fruits of my life. It was a fantastic period.”

In 1949, Marion Dale Lucero left the Hopi reservation at age 17 to look for work with the Fred Harvey Company. She began washed dishes, and travelled with other women, leading a vibrant social life, meeting her future husband as a Harvey Girl when he was in the military.

Hilda Velarde Salas, a woman of colour, expressed how working as a Harvey Girl gave her financial independence and stability. “Since I was a waitress, I’d get tips.” She said. “ I saved my money and I was the first one in the family that opened a bank account. I had enough money when we came to California to give a down payment on a house.”

?“I’m glad I was a Harvey Girl.” Said Zada Sharon. “The most important thing in the whole story of the Harvey Girls is the fact it gave woman a chance to move out of the lives they were locked into, and to be able to be a bit adventuresome.”

As passenger rail travel gave way to the automobile, Harvey’s enterprise switched gears and catered to the motoring public. At the time of his death in 1901, the Fred Harvey Company operated 47 restaurants, 15 hotels and 30 dining cars on the Santa Fe Railway.

The enterprise continued into the 1960s, with Harvey’s son, and later, his grandson, at the helm. In 1968, it was purchased by Amfac Parks & Resorts, which was renamed Xanterra Travel Collection in 2002. Though most of the original Harvey Houses and hotels are gone, a few remain to this day, such as the El Tovar Hotel and Bright Angel Lodge on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

The Harvey Girls were indeed pioneers of not only efficient and pleasant service, warm and welcoming hospitality in the West, but also pioneers and trailblazers of their own independence. Through their roles as Harvey Girls, countless women were able to take control of their own lives and forge their own futures in a world where practically everything was decided for them. ?

And so, it is vital that we look back at the story of the Fred Harvey Company, and most importantly, the Harvey Girls themselves, so that we can celebrate and learn from these courageous women, perhaps asking ourselves what we can do to forge our own paths and brighten our own adventurous spirits in our lives and in our work.

Written by Katie Wilson, EP Business in Hospitality