Episode 172: The Harvey Girls

 

Harvey Girls, undated, Creative Commons

Over 100,000 women left their hometowns for adventure, a job (and maybe to find a husband) to become Harvey Girls. These poised, skilled, efficient, charming women waited on customers in Harvey House restaurants all across the US and stayed to help establish communities in growing towns.  But, it’s impossible to tell the tale of these brave women who helped settle the American West without talking about the man behind them: Fred Harvey.

Mr. Fred Harvey, the man behind the women. Public domain

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Episode 115: Belle Starr and Calamity Jane

 

Everyone has a lesson to teach us, even the hard living, hard drinking, crime breaking ones who bucked convention and survived in a dangerous time and place. These two women of the American wild west fall on a side of the life-choices spectrum that we don’t usually talk about, but it’s time that we did. We thought it was time to tell the stories of two women with fabulous, well-known nicknames that mask who they really were.  (Lady Gaga and Madonna are amazing but come back in 120 years and we’ll talk.) (more…)