The Great Southwest of the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railway [Paperback]

Marta Weigle (Editor), Barbara A. Babcock (Editor)

Product Details

• Paperback: 254 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Arizona Pr (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 093435149X
• ISBN-13: 978-0934351492
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 8.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,460 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good reading if you are interested in the subject!, August 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Great Southwest of the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railway (Paperback)

Very informative, very interesting. I am familiar with the Harvey House, and what I didn't realize was that once the original artifacts were sold that the Harvey House influenced the types of arts and crafts that were being made, even the designs, and the size, based on the fact that tourists were only able to carry items of certain size. Even colors were influenced by the Harvey Company. I remember the Harvey House women in Newton, Kansas. They wore starched uniforms and looked very nice, almost like nurses. This book was not only informative, but it evoked memories. Highly recommended. It gave me a sense of sadness that all of these artifacts were collected to be sold. This was big business. Harvey House was feeding a voracious appetite for things "Indian." At the same time, they were helping to sustain the Native American people who were trying to cope with a changing world. Sam L.

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting for the specialist but less appealing to others, January 14, 2012

By 

Arthur Digbee (Indianapolis, IN, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Great Southwest of the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railway (Paperback)

Thanks to its partnership with the Sante Fe Railway, the Fred Harvey Company grew into a very profitable chain of restaurants, hotels and other businesses serving the tourist trade. It became a key player in shaping how Americans viewed the Southwest and its people, especially its American Indians.

This book was written to accompany an exhibition at Phoenix's Heard Museum in 1996. Unlike other art museum catalogs, it's not distinguished by a beautiful color plates. Instead, it emphasizes the texts written as part of exhibit planning, illustrated mostly by small black and white photos.

The articles, written by museum staff, consultants, and collaborators, address a range of topics concerning Fred Harvey's construction of the Southwest. Fred Harvey imagined Indians as part of the landscape as well as producers and sellers of hand crafts. His hotels helped create the style we associate with the Southwest. His visitors helped create an era of American tourism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, appealing to middle and upper class Americans, their self-images and their anxieties about modernity.

There is quite a bit of interesting material here but it is likely to appeal only to the specialist or the enthusiast. The authors and editors set the stage less effectively than they should, assuming quite a bit of background knowledge about the players of the Southwest. There's overlap among many articles, and several authors pop up over and over, alone and in collaboration. A stronger editorial hand would have provided better framing and tighter coverage in the specialized chapters.