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In 1946, Judy Garland starred in the movie The Harvey Girls, based on the novel by Samuel Hopkins Adams. Today the movie is best remembered for the Johnny Mercer tune that won the Oscar for Best Song.

Some people may still hum the song, "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe." And some may watch the movie on television. But hardly anyone anymore remembers the real Harvey Girls, the company they worked for, or the man who gave the company his name.

But that's pretty far along in the story, or rather the three stories, in Stephen Fried's marvelous Appetite for America . Each of them is well told and dripping with facts and lessons.

The first story is the story of Fred Harvey, immigrant entrepreneur. Harvey was 17 when he left England, in 1853 to come to America. He got a job in a restaurant where he learned the restaurant business from the ground up.

Harvey and his family moved to St. Louis to start a restaurant. But the restaurant was destroyed in a riot and Harvey went bankrupt.

So he did what other entrepreneurs, including my own grandfather, have done. He went looking for a way to put food on the table while he kept a weather eye out for opportunity.

The way to put food on the table was a job selling advertising for a newspaper that was distributed along the then-new Santa Fe Railroad lines. Harvey had to ride the train a lot.

In those days, the trains had to stop from time to time to take on coal and water. During the half hour stop, passengers could eat from whatever "restaurant" was available. The food varied from awful to OK. There was no service.

Fred Harvey knew all about restaurants. He knew how terrible the "dining experience" was for train passengers. And he created his opportunity by putting that knowledge into play to solve the problem.

He set out to provide meals for passengers in clean restaurants on white tablecloths. Trained chefs prepared the food. And the Harvey Girls served it.

The Harvey Girls were recruited from good families and schools. They were trained in food service. They wore clean, starched uniforms and lived in dormitories.

It's hard today to imagine how revolutionary that was. This was the West of Billy the Kid and Bat Masterson. The restaurants and the Harvey Girls became a true civilizing influence.

Fred Harvey the company became a small empire. In addition to the Harvey House restaurants there were classic hotels, a few of which are still in use. By the time Fred Harvey the person died, in 1901, Fred Harvey the company was the most recognized brand in America. One writer called the Harvey House restaurants "beacons of culinary light and learning."

That's where the second story begins. It's the story of Fred's son Ford, his wife, Judy and David Benjamin, a key executive in the company.

They expanded the brand beyond restaurants and hotels. Soon there were Fred Harvey newsstands, drug stores, bakeries, soda fountains, and more. There was growth and expansion, but the world was changing in ways that made a business tied closely to the railroads more risky.

More and more people travelled by car. Air travel was starting up.

And, some of Harvey's original competitive advantage began to disappear as well. As the West was settled, the Harvey House restaurants weren't the only place in town to get a good meal. The young women who might have been Harvey Girls had more options to pursue.

The Second War was a turning point, though no one seemed to recognize it at the time. Rationing limited the quality and quantity of food. Chefs joined other Americans from all walks of life in the Armed Services. Hiring standards for the Harvey Girls were relaxed and so were requirements that men wear jackets in the dining room.

That's where the third story begins. It's ironic that the movie celebrating the Harvey Girls appeared almost at the moment when the business began to decline. As the world changed around the company, it became harder and harder to maintain competitive advantage and generate profit.

The company didn't so much fail as wind down, slowly and inexorably. By the mid-Sixties, it was gone.

And it was really gone. Fried's book is the first book about Fred Harvey and the company.

A compendium called American Entrepreneur was published earlier this year to tell "the fascinating stories of the people who defined business in the United States." In 500 pages, the authors found room for such luminaries as Andrew Jackson Beard (the inventor of the Jenny coupler).

There was no mention of Fred Harvey. Yet he not only helped define business in the United States, but the United States itself.

In a very real sense, Stephen Fried has brought a central piece of American business history back from the dead. So this book would be welcome if it were written like most business history, dry, pedantic and boring. It's not.

This is a magnificently written book. Fried remembers to keep the "story" in history and it makes the book as readable as can be.

Besides the story, there are almost 100 pages of appendices and notes. They include a tour of Harvey sites that are still there and even recipes for food served at the Harvey House restaurants. You might want to try the one for Cream of Wisconsin Cheese Soup. It was Harry Truman's favorite when he and Bess dined at a Harvey House.

Some years ago, the Foxfire books set down the lifestyle, culture and skills of the people of Southern Appalachia before the knowledge passed from memory and record. I think we need something similar about businesses. Stephen Field's book can be considered a model and an admirable start.

If you read American history or business history, you will love Appetite for America .

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.