If you want a copy of the paperback of Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West–One Meal at a Time (featured in the new PBS documentary The Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound) and also want to support your favorite museum or national park, here are some helpful links:

For your Fred Harvey/Harvey Girls/Mary Colter/Santa Fe shopping list:
Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West–One Meal at a Time, the definitive biography of all things Harvey, now available in paperback and ebook.
New PBS documentary: The Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound by Katrina Parks
New profusely illustrated book about Fred Harvey and Native American jewelry: Fred Harvey Jewelry 1900-1955 by Dennis June.
The classic film: The Harvey Girls with Judy Garland

Now available: the DVD of the new PBS documentary “The Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound” by Katrina Parks! You can watch the trailer for the film, or buy the DVD for $14.99 at the site for the film or for $16.99 at amazon.com. I think it’s a terrific gift but I’m a little biased: I’m in the film, and it features my book Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West–One Meal at a Time.

The new PBS documentary The Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound got terrific ratings on New Mexico Public Television on Thursday night, (11/21). KNME GM Franz Joachim reports a 2.6 rating, the 7th highest rating in the entire PBS system and one of the main reasons KNME was THE MOST WATCHED PBS station in the country Thursday night. Mazel tov to director Katrina Parks, and proud that my book, Appetite for America and I are featured in the film. Stay tuned for air dates in NY, San Francisco and other cities–and if your local PBS station hasn’t scheduled it yet, call them and demand your Harvey Girls!

The new documentary “The Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound”–playing on PBS stations around the country in November and December–is terrific, and it features interviews with me (and lots of Harvey Girls) as well as research from my biography of Fred Harvey, Appetite for America. For the Fredheads on your holiday list, and the Harvey Girl uninitiated, consider copies of of the book and the film!

Thanks to our new Fred-friend and railfan Michael Martin of the Santa Fe Railway Historical and Modeling Society (and, in a previous life, the last PR guy for the Santa Fe), who is the one who got me invited to speak recently at the Society’s annual convention in Flagstaff but also forwarded this very cool letter from his collection. Readers of Appetite for America know that in the early 1860s, when Fred Harvey’s life was devastated by the destruction of his business by the Civil War and then the death of his first wife while giving birth to their second son, he was rescued by a kind packet boat captain named Rufus Ford, who gave him work and helped him rebuild–which is why Fred named his first son with his second wife Ford. Here is a hand-signed 1885 letter from Fred to the president of the A&P railroad (which at that time ran from Albuquerque to the Pacific and was just a sister line to the ATSF, not yet its full partner in a new transcontinental railway), asking him to give Ford and his wife passage to California as a favor to Fred–who mentions his personal debt of gratitude to the good Captain.

A very cool piece of Harvey history from the Mike Martin Collection.

Check out my new cover story in the Santa Fe Reporter about the growing Fredisphere and the new living history of Fred Harvey, the Harvey Girls, the Santa Fe and the civilizing of the wild west.

OK, here are the dates for my Fred Harvey “Who The Hell Goes to Arizona in August?” tour:

8/3: Grand Canyon South Rim, afternoon book signing at El Tovar, 6pm showing of new documentary “Harvey Girls Opportunity Bound,” 8 pm lecture by me.

8/4 Book signing, El Tovar

8/5: La Posada, Winslow, lecture and book signing, special meal available at Turquoise Room

8/8: Phoenix, Heard Museum, 1 pm, box lunch available

Make sure you check on my Facebook author page for details as we get them. And, if you haven’t already, please “like” the author page, as well as our new Harvey Girls Cookbook page.

And, if you’re interested in Americana cooking, epicurious just did a terrific story on the Harvey Girls Cookbook project.

Please follow us daily on the Harvey Girls Cookbook facebook page (by “liking” the page) or join the Harvey Girls Cookbook tumblr.

OK, here are the dates for my Fred Harvey “Who The Hell Goes to Arizona in August?” tour:

8/1: 8 am signing, Williams, Grand Canyon Railway depot bookstore
8/2: Flagstaff, evening lecture for Santa Fe Railway Hsitorical society
8/3: Grand Canyon South Rim, lecture and book signing
8/5: La Posada, Winslow, lecture and book signing, special meal available at Turquoise Room
8/8: Phoenix, Heard Museum, 1 pm

Black Bart and I look forward to seeing you on the long, dusty road. We are, at the moment, trying to arrange for screenings of the new Harvey Girl documentary “Opportunity Bound” at some of these events. If not, it’ll just be me, talking about Fred and Ford and Mary Colter and the Harvey Girls, including all the new things we have recently learned about them.

Make sure you check on my Facebook author page for details as we get them. And, if you haven’t already, please “like” the author page, as well as our new Harvey Girls Cookbook page.

And, if you’re interested in Americana cooking, epicurious just did a terrific story on the Harvey Girls Cookbook project.

Last night at the National Archives in KC, they brought together an amazing group of Harvey family members, and Fredheads who run Harvey museums or Harvey Girls groups in Santa Fe, Belen, El Paso, Dodge City, Florence, Topeka and Leavenworth. A huge part of the Fredisphere all together in one place, to see Katrina Parks’ new documentary on the Harvey Girls and to also see the National Archives new show “Fred Harvey: The Man the Brand and the American West.”

If haven’t seen the National Archives show yet, by the way, make plans to do so before the end of the year when it closes. It is jam-packed with photos and artifacts I doubt you will ever see together again in one place. Mazel tov to curator Dee Harris, and to Public Programs Specialist Kimberlee Ried for making all of this happen!

And we’re looking forward to seeing most of this crew together again today in Leavenworth.

If you’re a fan of the Harvey Girls or Fred Harvey—or have just been enjoying our Americana cookbook project—wanted to let you know that at the National Archives in Kansas City on 6/21 there will be a premiere of new documentary on the Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound by Katrina Parks, followed by a panel discussion with Parks, “Appetite for America” author Stephen Fried and other Harvey experts. The film will also be shown in nearby Leavenworth, Fred’s home town, at 9:30 Saturday morning, and both the Fred Harvey House Museum and the Leavenworth County Historical Society (where many of Fred’s things currently reside) will be open on Saturday for those who want to dig deeper into Harvey-ana. Here’s a link to the trailer of the film.

Here it is, your link to the the official trailer for the long-awaited documentary, The Harvey Girls–Opportunity Bound by Katrina Parks. I’m pleased to say I’m among the many people interviewed for it, and that I’ll be doing a panel discussion with Katrina the night of its official premiere, June 21 at the National Archive at Kansas City, as part of their exhibit “Fred Harvey: The Man, The Brand and the American West.” (For more information on the documentary and to arrange for later showings, contact the director, Katrina Parks, at katrinaparks@mac.com)

New Fred Harvey/Harvey Girl exhibit at the National Archives at Kansas City, opens May 7, 2013 and runs through January 14, 2014. I’ll be there June 21-22, speaking and helping premiere a new documentary on the Harvey Girls!

For those who love Fred Harvey, Americana Cooking and Harvey Girliana, please check out our Harvey Girls Cookbook site. You can follow it directly, or via its facebook page, or its twitter feed (or triple your Harvey pleasure and follow all three.) We post a “new” old recipe every day, and encourage today’s cooks to try them and report back their results. Also always looking for test chefs!

May Fred be with you!