**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - Featured in the PBS documentary *The
Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound
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.
*With two photo inserts featuring over 75 images, and an appendix
with over fifty Fred Harvey recipes, most of them
never-before-published.
