OTTAWA — The Harvey Girls return to the big screen in Ottawa for the first time in 69 years as part of the special National Archives museum exhibit. In conjunction with the Old Depot Museum’s current major exhibit, “Meals by Fred Harvey,” the museum and the Plaza Cinema will offer a special showing of the iconic 1946 musical “The Harvey Girls,” starring Judy Garland and Angela Lansbury at 7 p.m. Thursday. The Plaza Cinema originally showed the movie for five days beginning March 10, 1946. In the movie, Garland plays a mail-order-bride who after meeting her husband-to-be, decides to cut her losses and finds employment as a Harvey Girl. The movie includes the popular song “The Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe.” Although though the movie is fiction, the women who left home to become Harvey Girls were very real, said museum manager Diane Starsenic-Deane. After several violent confrontations between male customers and male restaurant staff in his railroad restaurants, Fred Harvey decided to hire women, she said. Over the years, Harvey hired more than 100,000 unmarried women known for their intelligence, manners, and high moral character and who became famous as the black-and-white uniformed Harvey Girls. His decision started a revolution in both the status of women and in the development of the southwest, said Franklin County Historical Society’s Deborah Barker. At a time when women had few options outside of the home, Harvey offered his female restaurant staff good pay and comfortable, supervised dormitories, she said. By hiring women and offering them a decent wage and room and board, Harvey created the first and largest female workforce in the country, Barker said. The jobs were highly coveted by adventurous young ladies, and competition to be Harvey Girls was fierce. Although Harvey Girls signed a contract that they wouldn’t get married for a year, there was a heavy turnover of his women employees, she said. In isolated areas in the area served by the Santa Fe Railroad and the Harvey House restaurants that had few desirable women, the Harvey Girls provided to be a civilizing influence. Tickets are just $5 per person and can be bought at the Plaza Cinema Thursday night. Before the movie, the Old Depot Museum’s “Meals by Fred Harvey” exhibit will be open during special evening hours from 5 to 7. Admission to the exhibit is free that evening.
Tuesday, Sept. 8, 4 p.m.
