Harvey Girls and the Wild West

For Mother's Day the spouse, who knows where my buttons are, gave me Appetite for America, a book about Fred Harvey and the rise (and eventual diminution) of his empire of train-stop eateries. It's a fascinating book, but the most fascinating thing is how much of America it encompasses. It's got your wild west cowboys; it's got your OK Corral (at least tangentially); it's got racial division and feminism (the reason there were "Harvey Girls", arguably the first large-scale corps of working-away-from-home women? Many cowboys were ex-Confederate soldiers who harassed the largely Black wait-staff--one of Harvey's assistants had the idea to hire non-local women to wait in the restaurants); it has recipes and good coffee!

coffeeem, I'm thinking I might send this to you to read, when I'm done with it...