What Makes Us Americans

Read the post below before watching the video!

This first “video blog” is based on the life of Fred Harvey.

For those of you who don’t know who Fred Harvey is, you will be surprised to hear how much his work has affected your life.

In 1850, at the age of 15, Fred Harvey immigrated to the United States from Liverpool England. He landed a job as a pot scrubber and bus boy at “Smith and McNewell Café” in New York. This was his first experience in the restaurant business and he loved it. From there, Fred went on to work almost every position in the restaurant/ hospitality world. He eventually opened tons of restaurants along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, the Gulf Coast and Santa Fe Railway, the Kansas Pacific Railway, the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, and the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis. At his peak, he had opened a total of 84 “Harvey Houses”.

The owners of the rail road admired his hard work so much that they started giving him more and more restaurants and allowing him to build his own hospitality empire along the all of the routs to the west. He built, lunch houses, dinning rooms, spas, resorts, golf courses, swimming pools and souvenir shops.

Fred Harvey is credited with building the first restaurant chain. Starbucks CEO, Howard Shultz considers Fred Harvey one of his biggest influences. He is not alone, other big players in the food service industry have studied Fred Harvey’s career in hopes of learning Harvey’s secrets.

This site (www.WhatMakesUsAmericans.com) is supposed to help people relate to American history. For most of us, it is a little hard to relate to the career side of Fred Harvey’s life. That is why I am going to tell you about his personal life as a husband and as a father. Keep in mind; this is not going to be extremely detailed… I’m skipping a lot but I hope you still get an idea of this man’s life and his drive to succeed.

Fred’s first wife died at the age of 26 shortly after giving birth to their second son. Fred quickly re-married a woman named Barbara Sarah Mattas who bore him 6 children.

Fred was constantly on the train tracks managing his restaurants and hotels. He wrote in his journal that he was upset with himself for “missing birthdays, holidays and anniversaries because of his work load”. One summer he took a week of to take his family (who he had been away from for over a month) on a vacation. While on vacation two of his sons became very sick and eventually died.

Now he has had a wife and 3 children die. In his journal Fred would write how he wished he “could have done something or been there” with is family during these times. On top of all this he was constantly love sick for his wife Barbara. He would write her letters professing his love for her but he felt it was not enough. When he would come home from his business trips he would take her on shopping sprees and to very nice restaurants. He wanted his family to have everything, which in his mind meant that he had to be the best and work the hardest at his career.

Fred also had a debilitating “mystery illness” that would cause him to lie in bed for days at a time. He would suffer from horrible migraines and bone aches. Although he consulted some of the best doctors of the time, no one could figure out what it was or how to cure/treat it.

Fred eventually handed his hospitality empire down to his sons in hope of spending more time with his wife and children. I wrote this song from Fred’s point of view while on his business trips. The pictures are of him and his family as well as some of his hotels, his house and some more modern pictures that I felt fit with the theme of the song. I recorded and wrote this song in about 3 hours so the quality is not great…. Make sure to click the “HD -On” button on the top of the video or you will not be able to read the lyrics.

For more information of Fred Harvey, I highly recommend a book called “Appetite for America” by Stephen Fried. It is the only true biography that I have found on Fred. It’s a great read and is only about $15 on Amazon.

Thanks for stopping in! Please subscribe the blog on the top right hand side of the screen and/or leave your comments below. I am anxious to hear what you guys think of the new blog idea (video + music). Also let me know if you guys have any other ideas for the blog.

Thanks again!