Pastor and author Dewey Johnson is the featured speaker for the next Thursdays at the U presentation at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire – Barron County.
Dewey Johnson
He will present “Fred Harvey and the Harvey Girls” from 12:30-1:30 p.m. Feb. 6 in the Blue Hills Lecture Hall in Ritzinger Hall. The presentation also will be livestreamed at ricelaketv.com.
Fred Harvey was America’s first widely known, well-respected brand name. As railroad tracks were being laid across the West from 1860-80, Harvey started the first chain restaurant, chain hotel and chain bookstore, all while making waitressing a respectable profession. 100,000 young women, America’s second significant female workforce, had the imagination to see themselves taking part in the trackside adventure as Harvey Girls.
The Feb. 6 presentation will explore how Fred Harvey and the Harvey Girls civilized the “Wild Wild West.”
Johnson’s most recent books are the nonfiction baseball account “One Last Double-Header: Joe Bauman’s Homerun Summer” and the fictional “The Harvey Girls Fight Back.” He currently is the interim pastor at United Presbyterian Church in Rice Lake.
The Thursdays at the U weekly series is free and open to the public thanks to support from the UW-Eau Claire – Barron County Foundation. Neither seating reservations nor parking permits are needed for in-person attendees.
Although in-person attendance is encouraged, most talks in the series are livestreamed. They also are archived and can be watched later on the Thursdays at the U webpage.
The next lecture in the series will be Feb. 13, with Ann Brand presenting “Intention and Attention: Cultivating Mindful Awareness.”
For more information, contact Laura Holden at 715-788-6207 or holdenlk@uwec.edu.
