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Start giftingAppetite for America
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Learn moreAppetite for America is the incredible real-life story of Fred Harvey—told in depth for the first time ever. 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.
With the verve and passion of Fred Harvey himself, Stephen Fried tells the story of how this visionary built his business from a single lunch counter into a family empire whose marketing and innovations we still encounter in myriad ways. Inspiring, instructive, and hugely entertaining, Appetite for America is historical biography that is as richly rewarding as a slice of fresh apple pie—and every bit as satisfying.
Stephen Fried is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author of Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia (the inspiration for the Emmy-winning film Gia), Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West-One Meal at a Time (a New York Times bestseller featured in the PBS documentary The Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound), Bitter Pills: Inside the Hazardous World of Legal Drugs, The New Rabbi, and the essay collection Husbandry. He is also coauthor, with Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy, of A Common Struggle: A Personal Journey through the Past and Future of Mental Illness and Addiction. A two-time winner of the National Magazine Award, Fried has written frequently for Vanity Fair, GQ, the Washington Post Magazine, Rolling Stone, Glamour, and Philadelphia magazine. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, author Diane Ayres.
Jonathan Todd Ross, a graduate of the NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, has narrated over 120 audiobooks across a wide variety of genres, including fiction, nonfiction, self-help, YA, biography and memoir, children's literature, and romance. He's won an Audie Award (Restart by Gordon Korman), received numerous YALSA and Earphone Awards (Swindle by Gordon Korman, Fake Mustache by Tom Angleberger, and more), and made all of his middle school bullies regret every mean thing they ever said to him when he narrated Tom Brady's The TB12 Method. Jonathan loves narrating all genres, bringing the author's words to audio-life.