It’s time to hang my hammock. Soon, it’ll be summer, and people will be complaining about how hot it is. Not me, I’m breaking out my cooler, and filling it full of ice and my favorite carbonated beverage* and relaxing in the shade. Ice—it cools our drinks, keeps the potato salad fresh, and makes summer tolerable, but it didn’t always used to be that way.
We open the fridge, see the little light, and expect cold food and beverages any time of the day or night. Would you want to swap your modern refrigerator for a block of ice in an icebox?
Less than a hundred years ago, our ancestors had to rely on the iceman to deliver a block of ice every few days to do what a few kilowatts of electricity do today. Workers had to cut large blocks of ice from ponds, lakes and rivers, store them in gigantic icehouses, and transport them to cities. Icemen then would deliver the ice to houses with wagons.
Ice! The Amazing History of the Ice Business, written by Laurence Pringle, looks back at the ice industry, and at a fascinating time of America’s past. Before the early 1800s, most people never had a cold drink on a hot summer day. Some men wondered if people could chill food and drink year-round by using a simple substance, ice.
What if ice could be cut in the winter, and be kept from melting so it could be available in the warmer seasons? Maybe it could even be shipped long distances to southern cities, and even tropical climates, where ice never occurred naturally? Could selling ice become a business?
Yes, ordinary ice was soon a necessity. Harvesting, storing, and transporting ice became a huge business in the United States. This book tells the details of the “frozen water trade” by focusing on the lake that became famous as the “Icebox of New York City.”
Thirty miles north, and just a half mile west of the Hudson River, lays Rockland Lake. Its handy access to the river helped in transporting ice by barge to the city. Most of the lake’s water arises from springs beneath the surface, and for city people worried about pollution, pure ice from Rockland Lake was a treasure.
Most ice harvesting was done in January and February when lakes were usually deeply frozen. Ice had to be at least five inches thick to support the weight of horses and men. There was no shortage of workers, as winter was an idle time for farmers as well as many laborers.
Men guided horses pulling saws that cut a checkerboard pattern of grooves in the ice surface. Then another horse-drawn saw was used to cut deeper into the ice. Men broke off blocks by striking into the ice with long-handled chisels.
A narrow canal of open water was cut, and kept from freezing, and men or horses would push the ice blocks along this channel to shore. Before storage, big blocks were cut into smaller pieces for easier handling.
In the icehouse, workers would set down a layer of ice, then spread sawdust on top, then start a new layer. Block by block, the icehouse would fill; some icehouses could hold one hundred thousand tons of ice.
The United States ice business reached its peak in the late 1800s. Once a luxury, refrigeration became a necessity. Another kind of cooling was needed, and not just for reliability. Sewage and other pollution spoiled the quality of the quality of ice. Ice harvesting was banned from some sites. The need grew for a safer kind of refrigeration.
When artificial refrigeration machines were invented, the ice industry melted away. At first, these machines were expensive and bulky and couldn’t replace the common icebox, but after demonstrations of a small electric powered refrigerator, the modern refrigerator was born, and America could enjoy a nice, cold one anytime…
*It’s beer, which is a major reason we have the modern refrigerator. Lager beer could only be brewed at low temperatures. As year-round beer sales increased, breweries couldn’t afford to gamble on ice harvests; the needed reliable refrigeration throughout every season.
Ice cold? Or Hot to trot? Drop me a comment at from_my_shelf@yahoo.com and let me know. Miss a past column? You can chill and get your fill at http://frommyshelf.blogspot.com for columns, commentary, extras, and more. This summer don’t cook, read a book. It’s the cool thing to do…
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