LE CLAIRE, Iowa — The Buffalo Bill Museum of LeClaire is kicking off its Women in History Teas on Saturday, May 11 at the Grasshopper Gatherings event center. The cost is $25 per person.
The first afternoon tea will center around 'The Harvey Girls,' and will begin at 3 p.m.
Each meeting will be an 'all-American apple pie tea party,' with apple pie, coffee and tea. Organizers say the goal is to celebrate the women who helped write American history. Buffalo Bill Museum hosts will wear period clothing. Guests are also encouraged to dress up in era-appropriate clothes, although it is not required.
After the Civil War, businessman Fred Harvey required thousands of young, single women to leave their homes and head West, building Harvey's restaurant empire along the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad line.
Those women, according to humorist Will Rogers, "kept the West in food -- and wives."
The so-called Harvey Girls married ranchers, cowboys, railroad workers and farmers. The group is credited with 'taming' the Wild West as they worked the land and grew their families.
On May 11, Carol Knealy, dressed in a replica of an actual Harvey Girl uniform, will share the stories of these thousands of women.
The Women in History Teas are a fundraiser for the museum's upcoming Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, happening June 29-30. A group of reenactors will bring 30 cowboys on horseback to Cody School to perform the biggest show they've done in 10 years, according to the museum's executive director, Rita Farro.
You can reserve your tickets here, or by calling the Buffalo Bill Museum at 563-289-5580.
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