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Fred Harvey (1835-1901) is the entrepreneur who developed the Harvey House lunch rooms, restaurants, and hotels, serving rail passengers on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. His partnership with the railroad began in 1878. At its peak, there were 84 Harvey Houses. They continued to be built and operated into the 1930s and 1940s.
Prior to the founding of the Harvey houses, lunchrooms serving rail passengers in the Western United States were deplorable. Harvey hired women to staff his restaurants at a time when the Western states offered few respectable jobs for women other than as teachers or domestics. He paid up to $17.50 per month (with free room and board) and advertised in the East to attract employees. He set high standards for efficiency and cleanliness in his establishments. Food was always served on china, and customers were required to wear coats.
It has been suggested that the Harvey Houses originated the blue-plate special, a daily low-priced complete meal served on a blue-patterned china plate; an 1892 Harvey menu mentions them, some thirty years before the term became widespread.
In a mythology that has grown around the Harvey Houses, these female employees helped to "civilize the West." This legend found its highest expression in The Harvey Girls, a 1942 novel by Samuel Hopkins Adams, and, more notably, the 1946 MGM musical which was based on it. The movie starred Judy Garland, was directed by George Sidney, and introduced the Johnny Mercer song "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe."
From about 1959 until about 1975, the Fred Harvey organization operated a series of restaurants in the Illinois Tollway "Oases," a set of highway rest stops built on bridges over the tollway.
The original Fred Harvey company lasted until 1968 when it was purchased by the Amfac Corporation of Hawaii.
A Fred Harvey museum is located in the former Harvey residence in Leavenworth, Kansas.
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