Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West
by: Stephen Fried

Hardcover. NY, Bantam, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 518 pages, b&w illustrations. 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. Clean copy.