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How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West
Bantam
April 2010
On Sale: March 23, 2010
544 pages
ISBN: 0553804375
EAN: 9780553804379
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
The legendary life and entrepreneurial vision of Fred
Harvey helped shape American culture and history for three
generations—from the 1880s all the way through World War II—
and still influence our lives today in surprising and
fascinating ways. Now award-winning journalist Stephen
Fried re-creates the life of this unlikely American hero,
the founding father of the nation’s service industry, whose
remarkable family business civilized the West and
introduced America to Americans. Appetite for America is the incredible real-life story of
Fred Harvey—told in depth for the first time ever—as well
as the story of this country’s expansion into the Wild West
of Bat Masterson and Billy the Kid, of the great days of
the railroad, of a time when a deal could still be made
with a handshake and the United States was still uniting.
As a young immigrant, Fred Harvey worked his way up from
dishwasher to household name: He was Ray Kroc before
McDonald’s, J. Willard Marriott before Marriott Hotels,
Howard Schultz before Starbucks. His eating houses and
hotels along the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad
(including historic lodges still in use at the Grand
Canyon) were patronized by princes, presidents, and
countless ordinary travelers looking for the best cup of
coffee in the country. Harvey’s staff of carefully screened
single young women—the celebrated Harvey Girls—were the
country’s first female workforce and became genuine
Americana, even inspiring an MGM musical starring Judy
Garland. With the verve and passion of Fred Harvey himself, Stephen
Fried tells the story of how this visionary built his
business from a single lunch counter into a family empire
whose marketing and innovations we still encounter in
myriad ways. Inspiring, instructive, and hugely
entertaining, Appetite for America is historical biography
that is as richly rewarding as a slice of fresh apple pie—
and every bit as satisfying.
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