dallas, too. he was a soldier. ..

in his book "appetite for

american stock with a journalism professor stephen fried recounts the life fred harvey one of the earliest innovators of the american hospitality industry. mr. harvey was the proprietor of in several hotels from chicago to los angeles. union station in kansas city missouri is the host of this talk. it's about 50 minutes. >> i want to thank everyone who's been involved in bringing me here to kansas city. it's been a whirlwind two days and now we are here in this building i must say i've spent a lot of time in the last six years in writing the history about fred harvey while fred harvey lived in leavenworth and the company was spread from its peak from cleveland to california. the second floor of kansas city union station was not slowed hub of the fred harvey business everything is all about america they took to people was from

kansas city, few. and before this building there was the union depot before it burned down so why have spent a lot of time in your town in my brain over the last few years. i think the easiest way for me to get you into the destroy all of this book and the idea we what we want to do is to for have imagery from the beginning of the book. so who the hell was fred harvey. on the spring night in 1980 to the trunk and cowboy is writing from northern mexico was in disbelief at the site of the montezuma hotel. it did appear to be a hallucination. montezuma was one of the most astonishing architectural creations in america perhaps most astonishing was its location. it was nestled in the gorgeous nowhere in the foothills of the mountains 6 miles outside of las

vegas mexico would read this into a town of the real world only recently connected to civilization. the largest building in the united states between the style montezuma featured a dining room that seated 500, casino of breathtaking wine cellar, a bowling alley, billiard hall and therapeutic dating facility offering six different kinds of day this and patrons could feel the to become fully experience the power of the underground hot springs. the service of the montezuma was believed to be with staff imported from the best hotels of new york, london, chicago and st. louis and the cuisine was amazingly ambitious. the food convoy and the expertise of classically trained chefs from around the world with fresh regional american ingredients, fruit, vegetables and shellfish as well as delicacies like turtles and celery harvested by pearl drop fighting tribesmen. to which the kitchens in the

country had access what most chefs wouldn't come to fully appreciate for almost another century. for a few weeks the resort was already attracting dukes and princes and presidents. the quickly passage on the atchison topeka and santa fe the upstart royal road and its newly laid tracks were the only way to get there. in front of the montezuma was a large part exquisitely landscape with shade trees and rare flowers planted in three treen the carloads and topsoil. at the center was a huge fountain flanked by croquet, and archery range and even a zoo were the der and antelope literally played. the park was illuminated with the building itself by thousands of lights. when john and his men approached on horseback that night, they could not believe with bloodshot eyes. the cowboys rode first to the park where they hollered and shot their guns in the air while

galloping across the grass. the commotion could be heard through the motel from its grand entrance way to its cavernous main dining room. he reached a tall slim man in his 40's with a perfectly groomed beard, deep cautious eye is since is that were always caught he tried to ignore the noise and enjoy his dinner but soon threw down his linen napkin and was abrupt it from his king backed chair. the man in a dark blue suit with a waste suit and gentleman from his homeland of england walked quickly with a nervous energy of america dropped and the intention of the dining room staff and some of the guests he passed. by the time they left the dining room the cowboys dismantled and were running wild through the hotel. you could hear them in the billiard hall where they were taking target practice with the indian relics of the cars

shooting at private label liquor bottles on the sideboard. but let your guns the english man called out striding into the room. who the hell are you, fred john asked. my name is fred harvey, he replied. i run this place and i will not have any rowdiness. if you can't behave like gentlemen you can't stay here and you can't come again. now put up your guns and take a drink with fred harvey he had been in america for 30 years, fred still retain his british accent which made some westerners jitter. but as the cowboys laughed, cursed and taunted him and hotel guests started gathering, he walked over and grabbed john by the collar. in a single motion the englishmen yanked the desperado over the bar and pinned him to the floor. you mustn't swear in this place, he told the cowboys. there was a moment of silence. and then read on told his men to stand down. fred harvey is a gentleman, he

declared, pushing himself off. i say let's have closed ranks. when the drinks were done they were served in the blight breakfast as well. the breakfast which fred harvey was becoming famous. eggs and stake available in the country shipped directly from farms and refrigerated train cars. pan sized wheat cakes stacked high, quarter inches of apple pie and cup after cup of the best coffee these cowboys had ever had in their lives. when john and his men never made trouble of the montezuma again but they still wanted to know as did more and more people across the country who the hell was fred harvey. [laughter] within a century later appearing over the lip of the grand canyon in my pajamas at 5:00 in the morning i am wondering the same thing. as the sun slowly eliminates the walls of the mind why there is a substantial literature just explaining why words cannot describe what i am seeing. but as i turn away from the

canyon i.t. in another site, less inspiring but many ways equally intriguing because it was created by man, buy americans on the very edge of the decline of this. it is the brusquely majestic hotel that has afforded me the luxury of rolling out of a plush bread at sunrise shoveling in my slippers the beagle staircase, a signal site to have the grand canyon pretty much to myself. it is arguably the most in demand hotel in the world. most of the guest rooms are booked up more than a year in advance. it is also one of the last places where fred harvey lives on. the founder of the family business that created this hotel and america's first hospitality and higher is still symbolically overseeing every detail of its daily life from the portrait hanging in the main lobby next to where the maitre d our lives every morning at 6:30 to greet

the tourists for the renowned breakfast with a view. in the painting he looks formidable and frankly a bit anxious. with a clenched fist protruding from his black coat. most visitors to the grand canyon don't have an inkling why this english man in the portrait matters or how he changed america. they are not aware there was a time not long ago when fred harvey was one of the most famous and intriguing men in the country. a food missionary as one prominent new york critic called him on a quest to civilize the united states one meal at a time. they don't know that the legendary harvey girls were the first work force in america of a loving single women for the first time to travel independently, earn a decent living and over time help settle the west. i was on light and when i first encountered the fred harvey siren during a visit to the grand canyon in the early 1990's. i discovered him as so many others have come in the photo in

a brochure. but then i started tripping across pieces of his story and legacy and travels all over the country of the mostly in the areas that as a board and bread easterner i think of as america's better half. over the years, fred harvey has become something of an obsession. it seems the more i learn about him, his family, his business and his world, the more i and a stand about my own homeland and how it came to be. seen through the prism of the family sought dak the late 1800's the period many of us slept through high school history class becomes a powerful reading, of a great nation expanding and uniting. one steel rail at the time and the formative years of the american century take on a different meaning. now besides all of those reasons there is another one because it is best exemplified by this photograph. this is my wife, diane, and this picture was taken at the hotel

in 1993 on our first visit there. as you can see she is spending guns i had bought for her at the fred harvey gift shop. [laughter] if you look closely you can see she's wearing a sheriff's star. when my wife was a kid she liked to dress up as a cowboy they called her black bart and i knew that and thought blogging herd this would be great and this picture is actually hung over my desk for the later part of my career. i think what it shows and one of the things that got me interested writing about fred harvey is the believe that comes from america's western past. why are we so fascinated by cowboys and indians? why are we fascinated by the west? why do people, my wife who grew up in erie pennsylvania, not one of the major cowboy capital -- [laughter] -- have such fascination with this and people still today. and i think one of the reasons i realize i read a lot when i was working on this book is that part of the point of writing

about the late 1860's and 1870's and to the 20th century is we are looking at a country that was divided terribly by the civil war and with the west meant to these people i think was a new america they could all romanticize together. but the americans they had all these years was in some ways broken to them as a place they could romanticize as a country and part of the reason we are fascinated with the west is because it represents more than cowboys and indians, it represents the uniting of the united states after the civil war because the west is the only thing all americans could agree upon and i think that's part of the reason you see this look on my wife's face. [laughter] some of your the fred harvey story in some of you don't. but why would like to do is take you through a little slideshow like until the fred harvey story. one of the benefits i have is i had access to all the families for at harvey's documents nobody even knew existed, so one of the opportunities we have today is

to show some of this stuff and families stuff. for those of you to speak to the fred harvey system began the 1870's through the 1840's and then continued through the 1960's. at the turn of the center this is how big the hardee system was. the address johnson hotels, all of the way from chicago to los angeles from los angeles up to san francisco and san francisco the restaurants were on votes that went across san francisco bay because the trains came to oakland and then leader after the turn-of-the-century the santa fe standard from st. louis down through oklahoma and texas so this is a huge part of america and in fact almost everything that happened in the cities from the time fred harvey was there for a party with this at the center of town. they were the places people went for their special meals. the place people celebrated.

the fred harvey restaurant saw an incredible part of america. now as i said i got access to his actual things which no right or ever has. this is fred harvey's wallet. it's the only when the texas to with his name on it and while we have all lived on like this at the dinosaur this is probably a real gold. the of list of money. this is essentially his shopping list and his output for how much she gave mrs. harvey and paid the wash woman and sent to his sister in st. louis who could never pay rent. it took years to figure out who the people were, where the money was going, why it mattered in his life. that is why doing this and a biography is about.

and this is the first of many letters recovered by the family pet harvey road home. fred harvey spend enormous amount of his life on the road. he was a real road warrior, he was an engine for the railroad for almost 20 years before he started the restaurant and hire you all know him for and he said his whole life was letters home and often letters from scolding his wife and kids they had and send him any letters because in this society we know how important it is to get mailed back. fred was obsessed with getting mail back. this was the oldest nutter we have from the brick house in chicago in 1869. for those who don't know the store that we give the basic characters and in most of the story took place based in kansas city much of it in this very room. this is fred harvey picture never seen before, this was his business card leavenworth kansas. this is his wife, sally. we discovered in the research this is his second wife, sally. this is in the story fred harvey told. in fact he felt bible with a

date date so that in the history he would only have one wife. it turns out a researcher in st. joseph missouri found a wedding certificate for them three years after the date that's in the bible so it turned out fred's to children everybody thought she had, another wife had, that wife died in childbirth and sally is the wife we knew for most of the story. this is david benjamin, somebody was of you have never heard of, the great unsung hero of kansas city business. david benjamin was an immigrant from london whose family settled in leavenworth. you know may be in kansas city better his brother, alfred benjamin for whom there are many statutes of that city. the benjamins were the beginning of philanthropic jewish communities in kansas city and which was the model for a lot of philanthropy throughout the country. david benjamin was fred harvey's bank teller. he became the first full-time employee in the restaurant business in the 1880s he was dispatched to kansas city to set up the office and he and fred

harvey's son ran the business in fact many years more than fred harvey did. fred harvey said an invention of the fred harvey to some degree part of the reason people thought he was a life for years after is that was his plan. the people land to the eckert in the business day today and were the bedrock of the comanche and kansas city for literally decades or david benjamin and of course freds some for harvey. he came into the business, he was forced to the college of the age of 19 to come to the business in the 1880s. he married and moved to kansas city in the late 80's, he and his wife were along the original couple set me up the hill, and he was a quiet power in kansas city for 15 or 20 years because the company put forth the idea that fred harvey was still running everything even though at some point he was sick and after 1901 fred was dead. but even though fred was dead he left the will but said the company had to run as if he was alive for another ten years. in fact his will couldn't be probated and nothing could be touched and basically the reason

people believed fred harvey was a life is because fred and david benjamin decided the was the best way to run the business with fred absent. this is the beginning of branding in america. it was invented by the fred harvey company because fred couldn't always be around and it's a model that all companies use now to try to turn their blend into something bigger than just their employees. and of course for every executive in the company there were thousands and thousands of what you know what harvey girls and we had the body just that in the early morning. the with the first female work force in america and it's believed the fred harvey company hired over the years there were harvey girls on hundred thousand women. they were hired here in kansas city or in chicago. they were trained here or in topeka or the eastern kansas houses and then they're ideal was they would not hide your local women to be in the restaurants. they treat their own harvey girls and sent them to the various locations in western kansas and colorado all through the southwest all through california so they could control

the work force and the harvey girls had to sign a certificate saying they would not marry for six months after they went to their posting. and if the stated the company for six months to get free train travel anywhere on the santa fe. this was the beginning of working women in america. they read it into this, the first to be about travel by themselves. they are the second and third generation harvey girls probably today. i met a couple today. kansas city is crawling with them. [laughter] in fact most of the old fred harvey cities of which as you know there are many are crawling with the descendants of santa fe railroad and fred harvey employees who i must say the outpouring of their enthusiasm in the book is great because in a way the story is being told the way they know the story, not the sort of kind of made up judy garland story. it has a nice song. some of which of these pictures have never been seen before. this is chicago dearborn. in the later years -- as i said

fred died in 1901. the business was based here but expanded. some of you know the was a depression worse than the one we are living through, worse than the one in the 1930's and 1890's. the santa fe railroad went bankrupt. every train company went bankrupt. the red carpet company was almost destroyed. it was actually only saved because they couldn't afford to fired from harvick because they couldn't afford to take over the food service themselves. the fred harvey company had a second coming after the made 1890's which is also as america was coming back reinventing itself after this downturn. it was then the company got involved in big union stations and they started building big hotels along the real work and that was the second life of the fred harvey company which included the place most of you know best hotels of the grand canyon. that was a part of the second part of the hardee company which went from the turn-of-the-century of to the second world war. this is mary coulter she worked right upstairs here. she was the first important female architect in the world.

the harvey company found her teaching industrial arts in minneapolis to do one job in the early 1900's to create the visible of the indian building albuquerque mexico. her work became the beginning what we think of as santa fe style which is taking native american art, native american goods generally seen very spare homes and putting thousands in the same room to create a lush environment with the same stuff. brigety in santa fe decorates their house that way many people across the country. mariculture invented that and was later brought back by the fred harvey company to do interior for all of the buildings. she was incredibly persnickety. the cab drivers in kansas city particularly from her hilarious because she would get in the car and scream to go as fast as possible. she was in several well-known taxi accidents in fact in kansas city because she was all over the taxicab drivers but this is a woman who was a very model of a professional woman who wanted to get done in her life and an

inspiration to a generation after generation female designers and architects someone who worked in the grand canyon would live on forever. the partner in crime in the second coming of the fred harvey company was a gentleman named herman schweitzer, the german jew who got a start at the fred harvey company has been the manager of the gallup and mexico house in the late 1800's and in the free time with ride out on the force and to the navajo reservation and start getting to know julie makers and drugmakers. how many of you have been to santa fe or to the southwest and how many of you came back with little pieces of turquoise and silver jewelry? come on, everybody. you may be under the impression that this jury was designed and created by native americans. it was in fact created by native americans but it was designed by herman schweitzer. hermann schweitzer realized early on most tourists didn't want to take home real native

american jewelry which is big and heavy and big hunks of turquoise, huge pieces of silver so he made a deal with the craftsman. he took them leiter silver smaller pieces of turquoise and showed them how to make the designs more tourist friendly which is a controversy elving people still talk about in the southwest today. however what he also did and what the fred harvey company stood for in terms of the to readership is that also saved the craft of the artful jewelry making and rug making so fred harvey was a company that helped merchandise americans which made them a little uncomfortable after with the federal government had done before the civil war and the originally owned almost all of the native american art in this country. here you have the nelson atkins museum and some of you know almost every native american peace was originally owned by the fred harvey company. that's not surprising because fred harvey here but basically every museum in the world that

has made american goods originally got those goods from the fred harvey company because the fred harvey company used to own all of the needed part in the country and the relationship with the native americans could be its own book. we try to make it the more -- one more entertaining part of this the fred harvey company as you will see because eventually i will stop talking they did so many things they were so ambitious and so many ambitious people working for them they wanted to try to do new and interesting things some people know them as a restaurant business and as a hotel business in kansas city if you remember the union station was in the fred harvey station. it didn't just have restaurants. fred harvey ran all the stores in the building three all of the services in the building. it became a major retailer in this building. there was a 24-hour bookstore that deliver to your house. a 24 hour drugstore station he would deliver to your house. men and women's clothing stores, native american art stores, kid's toy stores, that is what they did. kansas city tax credit having

the first shopping center but it's taken credit for the rahm shopping center. the union station was opened up many years before country club plaza and in fact for harvey was invited to be one of the partners in the plaza but did not want to be competing against themselves and the operation they already had going at union station so kansas city did, don't worry. it's for people to recognize this in fact was kansas city's first cover shopping center in the turning point in american shopping. kansas city also was the home of fort harvey's two children who were very much socialized in this town, had a wonderful life year. this is kitty harvick catherine kildee hardee younger brother fred harvey and i will show you a little bit more. fred harvey became a world war i pilot if your parents remember, grandparents remember during world war i in the first planes used for war freddie harvey was the one who came with the squadron to this city country club everybody could see how cool it was the planes could fly and they landed the plane on the

poll to prove it could be done. freddie harvey was a daredevil pilot and was the heir apparent to the company. he married betty the daughter of lucey christi considered to have the best case of anyone in kansas city and they were star-studded couple in the city for many years. this is kitty hardee in the later years to be harvey was quite a character. ki karni was one of the most openly gay women in the city. probably one of the first openly gay in society. it's part of the reason she ultimately was not allowed to take over the fred harvey company but was a fascinating woman involved in aspects of the cultural kansas city and one of the great collectors of native american art from the time she was 9-years-old and started buying art in santa fe. and byron hardee who for kansas city i guess is the one you should boo because he was the youngest five children of party and took the company away from kansas city. what is revealed in the book for

the first time most people assume the company went down over time because of the depression because of the railroads went on but in reality family business as we all know is mostly done in by these families. in this case after four harvey died in 1928 of a flu epidemic i honestly never heard of in my life, anybody that knew there was a flu epidemic after the 1980 many died, for harvey died after he got the cold and basically his brother and his children fought over what would happen to the fred harvey company the next few years it remained in kansas city and then it was speared to chicago and the rest of the story of its second world war while it still happened here in kansas city the company was then based in chicago and the harvey girls movie was made. the company was based in chicago and they felt the movie would be the second coming of the harvey girls of the company but instead it kind of became its eulogy. so that is the broad outline of the harvey company. but i would like to do is walk you through these pictures we

have that no one has seen before of the characters and the things that fred harvey company was involved in and then i would be happy to to your questions. this is the first picture that exists of fred harvey from when he came to new york city in the 1850's he came to what he described as a pot walter, a dustin play at a restaurant in new york. he moved to st. louis. the picture was taken in st. louis to start a restaurant in the 1860's his partner was a southern sympathizer at the height of all of the screening before the civil war started his partner in off and he joined the confederate army and fred harvey was left broke. he had a kid and another one on the way. his wife died in childbirth giving birth to the second child and he was in his 20s the entire american dream he had built for himself was already gone. he went in and got involved in the transportation business which in this part of the country as you know since the trade ended europe until the civil war involved being involved in trade, and the wagon

trains that took things beyond missouri and kansas. he worked in the business and learned that business and lived in st. joseph missouri then moved to leavenworth. this is downtown 1865 for those of you who don't know leavenworth it is a city that heats kansas city for its very existence because of course leavenworth thought it would beat kansas city when fred harvey moved to leavenworth in the 60's the belief was the transcontinental railroad would go through leavenworth and would be the next st. louis and everything would be great. unfortunately it didn't work out. kansas city became kansas city and people have been increasing ever since. fred harvey made the decision at the time he would continue to raise his family and leavenworth that it was a wonderful place to raise his family but like the businessman relocating his business elsewhere which four for lead and being on the road and what we know from fred's diuresis he was on the road

fusil freight and tickets for the railroad and he was traveling everywhere by train he also sold ads for the newspapers in the cities to work in. this is a list from his own notebooks he sold and this is an example how aggressive the businessman he was. it explains in here on this day in 1868 he makes a deal with the leavenworth conservative to sell for them and for $3,000 a year which believe me was a lot of money in 18674 decide jot it wasn't even a full-time job and she explained he guessed it would be okay to sell to other newspapers and they compete against leavenworth conservative but we believe to it would be a good thing for them. he was a very moral man, every outstanding man but very aggressive and always believed in american business worked best when your that aggressive about it. he wasn't competing against them he was asking whether could be additional sergey for what he was doing and people all over the midwest and in the east to

the west at my durham for this because he had something. he was an english man who understood the idea of american business in many ways more. he's been living here and i am not saying that because i wrote a book about him a look at the papers people are writing this about him before he was a famous restaurant man because people would it not for a party when he came to town because freight engines were a big deal. they made commerce go in the city. this is something after fred had been in business 20 years i believe he had second met life crisis peery when your 40 in those times that isn't my flight so he decided he wanted to try something else. this is a list for businessmen he cut out of a newspaper and pasted in his diary. one of my favorites is what is a trait which lawyers et wasters and leave the client the shells. [laughter]

be cautious and will make a bargain at once. these are rules fred harvey lived his life by and he believe that giving people lists of maximum that was a way to do business right and part of the way the fred harvey company was built on these lists of ways to do things right because sometimes the only reason you do things right in business is because you're supposed to. it's not always because it is the easiest way to make money but this is what fred harvey believed. in the middle of the 1870's he decided to start of his 95 businesses. he already had a huge cattle ranch in western kansas which he invested his money in. the ranch was fascinated to find out he owns the clutter farm which in cold blood he owned most of the county in fact and he had a huge cattle ranch and investments and a lot of mortgages and lots of businesses but he decided he wanted to get into the restaurant business and he can do that to begin to open three businesses they did not

get along with. the business of this integrated quickly. this is a listing for the house and wallops which one of his original houses. again, lists analysts. when you were in the restaurant business at that time it's more important to have regard and a lot of food. so everyday you had to telegraph how many cigars or smoked because if they didn't keep cigars in place you couldn't stay in the food business. and this is a historic list i felt this among his stuff. you may not be able to see but this is from january 6, 1876. this is a list of stuff that it needed to open the first railroad lunch rhode in topeka kansas on the second floor of the depot which was the turning point ultimately for his company. and this is the topeka depot as a bigger than. the story was told wednesday opened this restaurant it was so successful that inside of the trains they wouldn't go beyond topeka. until fred harvey open another restaurant down the line. this has been printed in the newspapers. this is completely made up part

of the st. a legend in fact fred harvey still have his cattle ranch and had the side businesses and was interested in them that it was slowly developing business in fact it was several years later he decides and he ran them again or cigars, he ran them for several years and then in florence kansas if you've ever been in force kansas there are more people in this room than in kansas. and at that time when the train came to town the population pretty much tripled. fred harvey decided this hotel and florence kansas which was the feeding station should become one of the great dustin asian restaurants in the world. basically the great chefs should be in chicago, new york, london and florence kansas. so he hired the chef he most admired of the polymer house in chicago and he told them he tells us when you want them to leave the jobs to the working place i will pay you all the money in the world you can do whatever you want here just make it the place of debate talks

about and william phillips co was up the palmer house can there and was paid $5,000 a year and much of what we know that the restaurant is from coverage in the london newspapers. that is how well no. mr. knott became because this is a place for doing push guys had created this oasis of american food and international food and it also was a place where people hunted and fished and brought what they called the were prepared in the grand international style. this restaurant changed his life. he made a great deal with william phillips which we actually have a copy of and soon they began their partnership. this is the oldest piece of the santa fe china that exists if you had this on ebay you could retire. much of what i learned about fred harvey i went on ebay. if you haven't looked at fred harvey is a world collecting out there. at the same time while it was getting bigger and bigger his family saw him less and less. this is a letter from his

collection that we were given if you can see his daughter writes, cried all day sunday because you were not home. it was very hard being his children. they rarely saw his death. he was on the road riding everywhere. i read about them at the beginning of the montezuma hotel with an undertaking. it was incredibly successful but it hurt his health and it changed his family dynamic after that he was a hotel mogul everyone in the country knew him and the railroad could expand further and further west and he with his other businesses and his kid knew him as a man and there they took my daughter may be a good girl and someday you will be a good woman you always find your affectionate father fred harvey. in the 1880s they began the harvey girls and they were invented primarily for a different reason anybody ever explained. because of the racism in the southwest. and in fact the african-american

waiters who been a working for harvey were in very much danger in mexico because the blazing saddles, that was all true. so basically there were reports in the las vegas is dippers the waiters were carrying guns while they were serving people than less vegas and further west in the mexico the company decided to make employees work in the back of the house and hire women from the midwest to come out and populate their distress. these are the earliest harvey girls. these pictures many of which have never been seen before with this is the ethos if you've ever seen the movie a league of their own the way these women take care of each other, that is the way the harvey girls were and not for just one more to baseball seasons. the phenomenon lasted from 1880s to the 1940's. you're talking about generation and generation of american women who decided they would have this amazing harvey girl experience. they are from syracuse kansas. the one on the right her date books are actually known and i got them because i heard that her granddaughter lived in the

kansas city area, got the name of the church she had buried her mother and had left a message hoping she would find me and called me. and she had her grandmother's date but get the picture and that is how i was able to use them. the history in this area is so important. more harvey girls and there were millions of chefs, the train many of the chefs and managers grand hotels all around the country. again literally for decades. it was a huge business. it expanded to california and eventually. this is the atlantic and us pacific railroad going to the king. settled down as i explained and this is one of the many historic events i got to write about because you access them from the hardee family. this is 1889 the day of the oklahoma land rush. where did the land of ghosh lead from? that led from the fred harvey restaurant and the santa fe depot kansas city kansas. i was corrected because i said that from on the radio yesterday. they probably had like 8,000 people call.

[laughter] i do apologize to everyone and c-span for making that incorrectly. but i am correct singing the fred harvey waitresses were sitting watching the people in the streets waiting for the call to go in to take over the land in oklahoma and it is one of many events the fred harvey people were front and center for in the massacre of the world's affairs. this enormous amount of american history the to place in and around center of town the fred harvey were involved in. he did get into the car business there were originally restaurants because there were no dining cars in the midwest but later they didn't do the dining cars and this is the first dining car between chicago and kansas city which is a controversy route which led to the santa fe getting into a battle with the old railroad's. this is obviously the dining car business became a big part of the business and one of the things fascinating to get access to use these are his telegraph books. the telegraph bucks. azo once written out that are kind of obvious. these are the ones more fascinating.

fred went overseas for about half of the year every year. he had a nervous stomach and depression and a love of the siskel elements. at that time the diagnosis he was given was the diagnosis we now consider laughable. he was diagnosed with something called american nervousness. [laughter] often called americanitis to read as a disease of the rich which if you are a doctor you want to be treating a lot of diseases of the rich, and the cure for americanitis was considered to be to leave america. they talk to the medical textbooks who could come with you when you leave america if you have a family that is annoying they probably should not come with you when you leave america. soft red went away a lot and part of the reason the fred harvey system the kimberly and in predicting the needs of consumers and the needs of their employees is because they had to do so much to predict the needs of their owners. whenever fred went away the had to create ciphers for every possible thing that could go wrong and for its business or

personal life so there was a word for everything bad that could happen some day with sent to the grass in england to read these books honestly are a psychological portrait of a man and his company in and of themselves treated this is a list of the first page, this is the as for mrs. harvey. this is the different things that could have a long and mrs. harvey's health. as i said she's very sick, come home at once. if it is abuse, sick, come home as soon as possible without interfering in business. if they use the word that meant it says do not be in the least bit uneasy. the word about it is sick and unable to set up. it goes on and on and on with all of the different things that could be wrong to read a fever, how bad it is today, it's worse today and everything that could happen in business. this manager is doing that this measure was $5, this manager once $10. we should replace this manager but by giving this they learned something he said about business. if you go through the good things and bad things that can happen before you are a better business community for it and that is what the fred harvey

company was able to be. i will walk you quickly through some of the more what we have here this is fred leader in her life. this is ford during his come up in kansas city. the station was the first of the union station's fred harvey company ran but before they came to kansas city. this is the last picture ever taken of fred. later they moved into the larger mission style hotels. teddy roosevelt and rough riders at their original rough riders convention at the hotel in las vegas mexico. that is how the hotels were announced to the world. and also opened in albuquerque. this is hardly sitting in the edge of the grand canyon are doing aware they should go. there's a huge debate whether the hotels should be located. they want to the hotel to be held over the edge. he said the terms of teddy roosevelt did not. this is the indian building and the eldorado at the beginning of the santa fe style and movie stars always wanted to be photographed here because it was on the road to hollywood.

all hollywood knew about cowboys and indians can from a dealer going through the pri party restaurants, these were the indians the new for the indian and cowboy movies and had big events at these places. teddy roosevelt came to the canyon in this famous and fire a little speech. his environmental staged the coup speech said he wanted to make sure santa fe didn't build the fred harvey hotel out. that is what they were trying to stop them from doing that if you read the whole speech that is how his environmental package began by and trying to get the santa fe to move back. they built a place to cancel a visit today. that is the harvey girl. the company was the only company like it to bottle coca-cola in the company that had its own bottling plant in clinton kansas. these are the second generations of harvey girls. come on, this is addressed kansas city union station that opened in 1914 and changed everything for the fred harvey company. do seen this. it's been beautifully restored. there was even fred harvey toyshop and chicago union station again became another and they moved into cleveland and

los angeles as well. now i won't tell you what happened to the fred harvey company. there is not enough time. i will only tell you the family drama between freddie, kitty, betty was on that cattle kansas city in awe and while it was happening the fred harvey company moved into santa fe and was the of original partner in twa. fri harvey moved into the plan business. this is one of the first airborne meals ever served, it was a fred harvey meals served on the continental flight. it was pretty hardy, charles lindbergh, harry ford, bland, all of the original people involved in a vacation. there's one more picture i have to show. this is albert einstein at the grand canyon. [laughter] one of millions of pictures of celebrities taken. albert einstein did not understand these and begins work for fred harvey. they felt they were indians being nice making him an honorary chief. you can see herman schweitzer in the corner whispered who is this

guy. what does he do? we have to give him a name. i said she invented the theory of relativity. they said people call him the great relative. [laughter] this is in the later years, some of the things she designed and i think i'm going to stop here even though you can't allow his endless enthusiasm for the story of fred harvey because of what you to read the book. i encourage you to learn as much about fred harvey especially as kansas city's great heritage because it is an unknown story of business, politics, culture that i think people can really appreciate. thank you very much for your time and i am happy to take questions. if you have questions, please go to the microphone right here. [applause] >> is anybody coming? okay. somebody is coming to the

microphone. it is a former mayor of will to get picture of me and then ask a question. [laughter] >> i'm curious about all of the material you've been able to gather that came mostly from the hardee family. and the fact that they had all of this in the pictures and everything else is quite remarkable and you have done a fabulous job putting it all together. >> thank you. the truth is the family didn't really know what they had. the hardee family was broken up after the business -- the business was sold out under the last generation of the work force. there is a bit of acrimony about that. they each had some of threads stuff. they got separated as they got separated and i did for many years the harvey heritage was something that was hurtful to them because they had been forced out of the business they thought they were going to be the next generation of so i think i was fortunate by the time i came to them and 2004 some of that was gone, they were older and were more in position to share what they had but most of them didn't know what they had. i don't think when i went to harvey jr's house and looked at the stuff he had in his basement

i don't think they realized they were fred harvey's date books because they were just old books. so, it turned out that a lot of -- some of the letters we found jam in old strongboxes no one had ever seen them since they been yanked out of four harvey's office when he died in the 20's. so i -- the thing i got to do with the catalog they also let me take them home. so many historians have to work with stuff and archives. it is rare to have the person you're writing a biography about, their actual stuff in your house. i had fred and for harvey's stuff, kildee harvey, in my house the last year. originally get back to the family last week. and then they will get it, i'm sure there will be a battle over what archives in the country get this stuff because it's amazing stuff. yes, sir. >> what was the year of the harvey houses in kansas and how many were there? i've been to florence and i don't think they know that. they don't talk about it there. >> florence was one of the early ones that was huge and actually

went out of business pretty quickly. i will tell you that in kansas and 1880s and the 1890's there were harvey houses in kansas city, augusta, chanute, coolidge, dodge city, and korea, florence, fort scott, kingsley, lincoln, lions, madison, manchester, mcpherson, newton, although, of pittsburgh, rush center, syracuse, topeka, wellington, which as all previous am i are there any parts of those left? >> sure. what is happening is very cold all of the country, not just kansas. the places where the santa fe depots were not knocked down negative people are replacing them and actually there is federal money to do that in dodge city the old harvey houses had dinner here the eight computer. a theater funded by the federal government for many millions of dollars because they saved the transition. so in fact there are buildings oliver kansas, there are some and missouri, there are buildings offer texas, california, arizona, new mexico that are being reclaimed by the communities. there are only three currently

running at harvey restaurants and hotels you can go and have a summer experience to back then. laforme hotel in santa fe, la tasatto in winslow arizona which is restored as the last trackside hotel that you can literally walk off the train and sat down and have an incredibly delicious meal and all of those hotels are of the lip of the grand canyon on the south rim. those are the original fred harvey-run hotels. bright angel, santa ranch at the bottom of the canyon, mariculture beside them, for and harvey grant and decide the buildings and they run the same today as they did then and the company that runs the national park owns the fred harvey naim and all of the fred harvey properties. any other questions? come to the microphone. okay. thank you for your attention. it's great to meet all of you. i would be happy to sign some books. [applause] >> stephen fried is the author of "bitter pill inside the

hazardous world of legal drugs." he is a two-time recipient of the national magazine award and is fighting has appeared in rolling stone cover of "vanity fair" and "the washington post" magazine. he's currently an adjunct professor of columbia university grad school of journalism. to find out more, visit stephenfried.com. >> jason, what attracted you to the yugo? >> it wasn't a dream of mine to be the guy that wrote a book on the yugo. i was always interested desiccate in those rare moments in which you decide to enter the american consciousness which was almost never. the 1980's the dictator, hyrum arafat, the olympics of 1984, and then the basketball player can and it placed corrine adel musharraf for the most part of

the ever knew anything about it. except for the yugo. prior to the war the number one most recognizable object or artifacts of any kind from yugoslavia was this car so i wanted to know why that was. i was also a bit tired of war and conflict and violence and field states and there is incredible books on conflicts and the brink of yugoslavia but i just wanted to write something like sure with a more popular feel and the yugo story is far deeper than my fault. i'd simply writing the book of a production model of a car. >> when was the yugo produce and why? >> of the yugo was actually a date sia. the body designs from the 70's. it was licensed as dated technology to a factory in serbia and communist yugoslavia. it was never meant to be exported to the united states. it was never meant to be exported to developed first

world countries. it was simply a communist party, basic transportation at a basic yugoslavs licensed the car and began production in the 1980's. the car came to america in 1985 and at that time it was probably already 15 years out of date. today that it came to america. >> who had the bright idea of importing these? >> well it was a man named malcolm bricklin. he is the great, great story. he's an entrepreneur, one of the famous car on to the doors ever. he's been called a see a real entrepreneur in the business textbooks and have a phenomenal ability to get people excited to bring products to the market to do things no one can believe that he will lever due to gather investors he literally loved the chase. i never saw him as someone trying to make money or steal money or call on anyone. he was trying to make his next venture work. he found subaru of america sold

that for 150,000 moved on to a car from canada that he imported that was a total disaster. he's great on the front end and pour on the follow-through and he's had a string of bankruptcy's at financial disasters behind him but in a way he's conducted teflon donner and get on to his next project and next project until he came to the yugo, and really i want to insist in my book that the yugo was another brooklyn project. it wasn't just seen in the vacuum or simply looked at a car that came to america. it was another venture in the longline of brooklyn denturist that still goes on to this day he tried to bring over chinese cars in the 2000's. >> is he still alive? >> he's still alive. he was successful with the yugo. he sold for about $5 million. he was a very successful man. >> how many yugo were sold in the united states? back this is what is amazing double the story and why i wanted to look into it is the sold 150,000 cars in seven

years. it was the best-selling european imports in history. more than mercedes. what i wanted to know is if americans bought 150,000 which is a lot of cars but over that same period we bought 70 million cars, why is the yugo so universally known and scored when most americans have never driven one, they've never saw one even when it came out, what was it about the car? it's the numbers, the numbers are so tiny, miniscule so what is the last reason? what is behind this which is what i wanted to look into. >> what is behind it? >> i think a couple of things. one was the meaning in the beginning. malcolm bricklin is a story. bricklin had these successes and failures so when she was bringing the car over it was a communist rate in america, that is news. it was a 3,990-dollar car, the

cheapest new subcompact car was 5,000 the average was 9,000 so that's news already. but then bricklin is a master at using the media to his advantage, just getting of the word out. and the press through the summer before anyone had seen or driven the car they had seen about $20,000 in free publicity to 1985. the yugo level three might flee news programs. it was on cnn, virtually every magazine in the country. before it really ever hit the market. and so when the yugo can now it really was a fact it was a yugomania to read this whole bunch of $50,000 diman putative regarding imported for the fall of 1985. people were ordering yugos site unseen. some dealerships. it really was a fad. but like all fads what goes up must come down.

people loved the car, they wanted to see it and drive it and then consumer reports got ahold of it and consumer reports is still a very powerful publication but in the 80's most people remember this is what you read before you bought a product and in the consumer report panned the products companies also went bankrupt. it was very powerful. in january of 1986 and fenty were the addition of the consumer reports they can the yugo and wrote the last line, i'm paraphrasing it was better to buy a good used car than any yugo command that alone set up a state of literally hundreds of newspaper articles and every paper in the world saying yugo paid by consumer reports so what quickly went up came down like an eight ball and it was quite remarkable. >> 150,000 that were sold, how many are still on the road? >> i estimate in my book is about a thousand light have to revise that to about 200. we've been on some programs where we had yugos, i would sit in a yugo or talk to people

while next to a yugo and we searched high it flow for cars and could hardly find any. and it is remarkable. who still has them. there was a man in delaware who had one and another guy in jersey. we had to tow the car to get into the show. there are some, soars some people who keep them going. the basic technology was not bad. it is a fiat model. people who own them swear by them but you have to be able to tinker with cars and overall the problem was the manufacturing. the quality was low, the car wasn't put together very well. and that is the basic. there was nothing catastrophically wrong with the yugo. there was a small recall in the very beginning that it was just that stuff didn't fit right, it wasn't manufactured well on the assembly line in the communist country. >> tell us about the factory. >> the factory is pretty fascinating. it was in the plant in southern serbia. from the 1850's.

very old, very dated technology, very crowded and poor lighting. people who actually went there, one man from all the world, the magazine, went to a report on east european manufacturing and they said osha would have a field day just walking around the plant. and somebody said it was diego rivera lives and it was literally just teeming with workers who worked hard and they were earning their paycheck. they smoke on the assembly line. quality-control was poor. the floors were dirty sunday but stuck on the dirty floor and then stepped into the car oftentimes one of the men i interviewed, american, went over and saw door panels coming off come out of the alvan line to be assembled with dents in them so it was poor quality control in the beginning. and the factory itself was bombed by nato in 1999. the company was making