The Forgotten History of Ice
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- čas přidán 13. 07. 2021
- On July 14, 1850, a French consul celebrated Bastille Day with chilled champagne on ice, in Apalachicola, Florida. The event was thought to be the first public demonstration of machine-made ice. The innovation might have capped a millennia-long quest for chilled beverages, except for the interference of the notorious "Ice King of Boston." The surprising history of the human quest for ice deserves to be remembered.
This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As very few images of the actual event are available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.
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Script by THG
#history #thehistoryguy #ice
I found a bunch of old ice handling tools once and wondered who was being tortured.
Ice delivery boys. Their block-spatulas are still used to spank pizza-boys to this day
@@robwaddell7934 Yeah I've seen the Laurel and Hardy and Three Stooges shorts where they deliver ice.
Some are nasty looking tools!
Frosty the snowman is still in therapy to this day!
😂👍 I've seen a few of those old ice handling tools, some most definitely have a certain Medieval look!
The high temperatures here have been in the mid 90s and I must admit that I have enjoyed having refrigerated air conditioning while drinking beverages with ice. I often don't acknowledge the people who have made this level of comfort possible, but none the less, I am truly grateful.
We couldn’t write down all the stuff to be thankful for. We live far better than 99percent of all the kings in history of our race (Adams).
Can you tell me how to refrigerate my airconditioner? It's not cool enough 😉
Mid 90's sound ALmost cool here in Sunny Las Vegas, lol
@@michaelgarwood7076 I agree. I spent three weeks once in the Summer, it was torture 😰
A couple of summers ago, our A/C died in South Georgia while I was traveling in the course of my work. I picked up the part I needed on my trip and installed it myself, potentially saving $500 for the repair. The part was under warranty but the labor would not have been. And the last time I’d hired a H&A guy to work on the A/C he conveniently ignored that the part was warrantied and I wound up paying $600. So I’ve been doing my own ever since.
But they were miserable until I got back.
Modern homes are designed to be heated and cooled by HVAC systems. Before air conditioning became an option in the 1950s and 60s, houses were designed to allow natural air flow. But people didn’t spend as much time in doors then, either, especially during the day time
My dad grew up in the depression. One of his first jobs was delivering ice to people's homes. He always called our refrigerator "the icebox."
I saw an icebox on a ladies porch the other day.
No electrical or mechanical parts.
I remember there being an ice house in Tallahassee, FL that made and sold block ice in the 60's.
My grandma usually did, too. She was born in December of 1929.
My grandfather and many others from the Bari province of Italy delivered ice to people's homes for their iceboxes.
I enjoy looking through old kit home catalogues by Sears and other companies, and it's also interesting to see the effect the icebox, and later refrigerator, had on home design.
In the late 1950's when I was a kid, there was a local fish plant that still had an ice house, filled with ice harvested from a nearby pond, and covered in sawdust. We kids would sneak in there to cool off on hot summer days.
Reminds me of the movie East of Eden.
I remember going to a camp ground on a lake in Northern Minnesota in the early sixties. I was prolly six. My brother and I was sent off to the ice house to get a block of ice. On the way we saw some toads I picked up one which immediately peed on my hand. The square of ice we got had saw dust on it. So I learned that saw dust kept the ice from melting.
One pound of ice melting has the same cooling effect as lowering one pound of water by 144 deg. F. So in theory one can take one lb of water at 176 deg. and add one lb of ice and it should get down to about 32 deg.
Has a high school student, one of the most sought-after summer jobs was working in the local ice house. I will have to check and see whether People's ice house still exists. Probly not. Thanks for the memory.
The town I come from had an ice house, where the local fishers stored ice harvested from the ponds around the village (I don't know if they imported some after a warm winter). It vent out of business when a cooling tower was build. Now the winters are seldom cold enough to freeze the ponds.
Refrigerated air and ice makers are the only reason people are living in Phoenix now.
It had never occurred to me how easily ice can be produced in very arid climates. I live in humid Florida where swamp coolers do absolutely nothing.
Luckily swamp coolers work where I am in California. Routinely reaching 110'. But 'It's a dry heat' mostly. AC is unaffordable for most in this rural area.
My bride's family patented an ice harvester (The Gee Brothers Ice Harvester) made with a giant one cylinder engine and saw blades almost four feet across. This saved many a horse from falling in the lakes during the winter. Unfortunately, home refrigerators were just coming on the scene and they were just a bit late. EDIT: She just reminded me, as recently as ten years ago, one of their ice harvesters were still being used in Canada.
Those single cylinder engines built the modern world, and many run to this day. Out in the oil fields there are still single cylinder engines running from the day they were installed with almost no maintenance.
They were a true marvel imo and deserve an hour episode
I like the fact that the history guy credits his research sources…
He probably has an academic background.
Of course. He's a real historian and a consummate professional.
@@mikehydropneumatic2583 He does; in his old intro he said he has a degree in history. Probably a bachelors, but even that much teaches you to cite, cite, cite.
Isn't it amazing? You college and high school students take note! You can find these same sources and cite them yourself in research papers. Impress your teachers/professors. Make THG proud. 😊
I believe he was a teacher as well
I have my grandpa's ice tongs he used to deliver ice in Louisville, KY ~1900. In my hometown of Glasgow, KY there is a park where I played Little League Baseball that at the time had 2 large shallow ponds adjacent a spring fed creek. Story was water from the creek was pumped into the ponds in winter and blocks of ice would be cut and stored for summer use. When I played baseball there in the 50s & early 60s, a "ice plant" had been built across the creek from the ponds and the ponds were used for public fishing. We went to the ice plant for block ice put in our steel Coca-Cola cooler for summer picnics & 1957 Chevy Station Wagon road trips. We also got chipped ice for the ice cream churn. Memories for sure.
Dude, ice harvesting is a key element in my love of history. I’m from Green Bay, WI, the last place ice was commercially harvested. Up until the late 1990’s, we used to be able to drive trucks across the bay on over a foot of ice every winter. We went out there to ice fish, no we weren’t fishing for ice 😁 In lake Winnebago, they still use big chainsaws to cut large holes to spear sturgeon. That was just so cool to see. The bay never completely freezes up anymore and my son can’t imagine it. Anywho, my love for history… the Nevelle museum in Green Bay has a permanent exhibit on the history of Green Bay from the last ice age. One of the displays has film footage of ice harvesting in the bay in the 1930’s. It went on until the 1960’s. From Green Bay, it was stored in ice houses and in spring thru the summer, the ice could be shipped anywhere in the world thru the Great Lakes and out to the Atlantic without leaving the boat. There was something about that display and especially that film. When I was still in school, I got a job cleaning the floors and such at the museum. I’ve seen that film 100 times. After that, I see something old and wonder. I wonder as much as I can afford…
Do you know why the lake doesn't freeze completely anymore?
@@Genesh12 To split a hair, it's "the Bay", "the lake" is lake Michigan, but it's climate change. If you'd like the full breakdown of the change of climate in north east Wisconsin, let me know. It's a long, sad list
@IStillShower Future humans will look at people like you and laugh or more likely cry. 5000 years ago the Sahara desert was a jungle. Climate change isn't a thing. Change is part of climate.
I work every morning 7 days a week and you are the first thing I listen to when my shift is over. Learning random snippets of history has become a daily joy. Thank you History Guy.
Holy fuck, dude. Why work so much???
@@0ThrowawayAccount0 My prediction: Farmer with milk cows.
@@0ThrowawayAccount0 Just remember, vulgar curse words (language) are/is the sign of a weak mind trying to express itself forcefully. Clean it up or shut it up! Thank you.
Maybe (probably) he has a family to support and he doing the best he can.
@@jimbarber9414 I know this is a year old comment, but I really have to make sure someone lets you know that this is an incredibly pretentious view. The idea that someones vocabulary is that indicative of intelligence is classist as can be, and has traditionally been a tool for some pretty nefarious business.
I urge you to consider why and how an idea like that comes about and what purpose and people does it serve.
I refrained some saying fuck and such, despite my kneejerk reaction being to rib you for being a bit of an ass; that wouldve only further cemented your views. (The word "ass" here is used an observation of your behaviour, not simply a baseless jab.)
@@jimbarber9414 ok boomer 🤡
Having lived in a house in the rain forest as a child with no electricity but with a kerosene powered refrigerator - I can appreciate how important ice can be.
If you've ever lived without it, you'd understand.
Another fascinating story HG. I will always remember Curly from the Three Stooges carrying a large block of ice up the long flight of stairs only to arrive at the top and it is the size of a cube!
And then the Ice Box 😆
That's a hilarious classic. Always remember that.
😅 N'yuk, n'yuk, n'yuk....!✌🏼😎
I was just thinking of that episode.
Great episode! That was truly hard work, back in the day.
"Now I'm here, in Memphis, talking with you. There's ice in my glass." - Cast Away. I always liked that line. It's my favorite from the movie.
Who else is addicted to The History Guy?
Neat video.
I am glad you covered the early Persian ice making systems.
Many other Persian buildings used a similiar process to keep them cool in summer. I first found out from a sustainable building industry magazine.
On another note.
There has been a severe heat wave in the Pacific Northwest. In several other places the electrical grid has been strained.
It is possible that your home or apartment could lose power. Take some precautions to protect your refrigerated and frozen food supplies.
Freeze gallon jugs and bottled water and fill the empty spaces of the freezer.
If the power goes out the extra ice will extend the ability of the freezer to keep food frozen.
You can rotate some of the frozen jugs to the refrigerator and place things in close proximity to keep them cold.
Wrapping a light towel around a frozen 20 oz bottle of water makes a great cold pack.
Also as the ice melts the water is really cold.
Sip on it.
Like drinking off an iceberg.
Yall stay safe and cool.
I am old enough to remember the Ice Man and his horse drawn wagon delivering to my house in the City of Los Angeles Ca. At that young age I wanted to be an Ice Man because of the horse. My parents purchased a Refrigerator before I entered Kindergarten, and used until it was unrepairable some 30 years later.
Room for two ice trays and a quart of Ice Cream.
Sometimes I miss those old refrigerators (where the cooling apparatus was mostly contained in the "freezer" portion) but the new ones are so much better and more efficient.
When my dad was a kid ~1940, people in small town Wisconsin were still saving winter ice through the summer in sawdust lined pits.
My grandmother growing up in rural Manitoba (she was born in 31) had an ice house up until electrification sometime in the 50s. Her dad and brothers cut ice from the nearby creek.
As a young feller back during the "war" and even for a year or two after my parents bought ice off a guy who delivered ice for our ice box. No refrigerator until late 40's. Enjoy your videos.
Who would have thought ice of all things would have such a fascinating history?
A good story depends more on a good story TELLER than the actual events being described.
Oh C'mon, haven't you seen the Disney movie "Frozen"?
Apparently, there were no ice pirates. Still a good story, though.
Wait until you discover the history of salt!
@@bgleadbetter I'm sure it would be peppered with interesting facts!
My Dad pointed out where the old "Ice House" was near the lake where I grew up in New Hampshire. It seemed impossible but they'd cut tons of ice off the lake every winter and have enough to sell all summer by packing it in saw dust apparently. Before refrigerators lots of people had "Ice Boxes". Just like a fridge but with a big area at the top for a chunk of ice delivered by the ice men. Imagine that... ice cut off a lake staying frozen all summer without refrigeration. It almost seems magical to me.
Out of curiosity, sir, which lake? My grandfather's operation was mostly on Big Island Pond in Atkinson/Derry NH.
@@peterstickney7608 Newfound Lake near Bristol, friend. I count myself lucky having such a big clean lake to grow up near. It is in the "Lakes Region" of New Hampshire so I'm sure there was no lack of ice for citizens living in the area.
@@thanksfernuthin Out of our area, but I know the Lakes Region well. Newfound Lake is a great place to be around - the whole Lakes Region is a treasure.
It is so n(ice) to be part of a global community that makes such terrible/wonderful puns… and that treats each other so nicely (the actual reason I started writing is the way you are talking to each other).
Remarkable.
If only more of the world behaved this way!
Best regards from Australia.
@@thanksfernuthin As you know, Newfound Lake is the deepest lake in NH, 183 feet deep. The Rockwold Deephaven camps on Squam Lake still use ice harvested there for the ice boxes in the cabins.
Very chill episode, nice work
^^^^ 😂 I see what you did there 😂
My grandfather's first job was delivering ice with a horse and wagon. The job had a added bonus that he could collect swill on his route that he could use to feed his pigs.
I can't imagine tea or lemonade without ice, especially in the summer!☃️
Ice machine technician here for the ice history!
Hobbyist ice machine technician here. Well, just the guy who's willing to "give it a go" on whatever is needing attention in a small business.
Any advice on an Indigo (R404A) that keeps detecting full bin? Magnet/sensor on the curtain?
I was working on that as yesterday met today but I didn't expect to be asking for advice here!
@@matthewellisor5835 Google your model number and "service manual" manitowoc has really good diag write ups in thir manuals.
👍🏼Stay cool! 😎✌🏼
I have done some preventative maintenance on some commercial ice machines and the worst part of it is seeing the slime come out of the water pan.
@@robertoswalt319 Even though we clean it weekly and more often in summer-time, it's still disturbing seeing the gunk that lives on it.
Wow, we take so many things for granted in the modern world. Great topic on a Hot day👍
When I read " The history of ice " I thought the history guy ran out of history to talk about.
I often thought the term “iceberg lettuce” was used because the round shape of the lettuces head but it came from the method of packing the rail cars full of lettuce with ice to transport it from California to NY!
I fact checked this claim because of, you know, this being the Internet and found this claim to be true! And I also found out that lettuce has mild narcotic properties! Link that backup the claim of the ice part of the name:
www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/tip-of-the-iceberg-our-love-hate-relationship-with-the-nations-blandest-vegetable-9074175/
@@Apeshaft "True" in the sense that most websites repeat it - is there any prima facie evidence though?
@@Nastyswimmer I'm going to cunsult three experts and get back to you! Ice-T, Ice Cube and you know, the other one too, I guess? The three Ice men will also bring us gifts, I hope? Anyway, BRB!
@@Nastyswimmer : I can tell you that the description of the cooling method is false. Before the adoption of mechanical refrigeration, refrigerator cars used ice, yes, but it was kept in bunkers at the ends of the car (or at the top in the case of some very early cars), with later designs circulating air through the car with electric fans driven by small generators that ran off the car's wheels.
There was a service called "top icing" that was used to moisturize some kinds of perishable agricultural loads. A thin layer of ice (about 2 inches) was spread over the top portions of the load (actually they used a blower), but it required a lot of extra ice, which was dead weight (any weight that isn't lading is), and it didn't even work that well, so they stopped doing it.
The linked article has several key inaccuracies:
-The article claims this ice packing was done before the refrigerator car was invented. If iceberg lettuce was introduced in the late 1940s, it was introduced about 100 years after the advent of the refrigerator car.
-As I noted before, ice was not piled on top of the lading, it was kept in bunkers at the car ends. -Again, top icing was a practice, but ice was not packed in the boxes. Only a thin layer (about 2 inches) was spread over the top.
In fact, this article found other inconsistencies in that story, namely, that it's been called iceberg lettuce since the 1890s:
blog.angelatung.com/2012/04/14/lying-about-lettuce/
The story seems to be a fabrication of some corporation's marketing department (especially since it describes a shipping practice that never happened). I tend to side with the article I link above - nobody really knows.
I remember seeing pictures from old Cincinnati of ice workers pulling slabs out of the canal that used to run through town (now Central Parkway). BLECHHHH!!
Probably from the Ohio river too!
YUCK!😝
@@michaelwalton7066 I remember watching (with my mother) people walking across the Ohio River during the winter of 1978 (I think). This at Louisville, down from Cincinnati.
Yeah, man! And we wonder why cancer rates are so high...
THG sipping his drink with a resounding and satisfied "Ah!" So corny, so welcome and expected. Well played sir!
The little smile at the side of his mouth. Trying not to smile....
I love how your videos elicit so many personal memories from people and add a personal touch to the history you provided. There are some great stories in the comments.
I couldn't be more happy for you and your lovely wife's success. The free market for information had another Revolution with the internet age. Now people can reward individuals and regular citizens to become their own media operation. Your history channel teaches history not taught in schools today. Many millions around the world are thrilled to learn our past. The reach of The History Guy is growing and will continue. The professionalism of the production, is as good as any legacy media. We continue to root on "THG". In a time
When trusting journalism is low, THG channel has excellent credibility, and trust.
Does he brag in this episode?
I hate that.
Enjoyed this while icing my (middle aged and cranky) knee. Well played, History Guy!
My great, great grandfather had a 3 masted schooner in Boston. He delivered ice to the Bahamas and came back with molasses and sugar. Not sure if he worked for Tudor.
In 1970 as young boy on fishing trip to Canada, I remember they still were using ice blocks cut from the lake in winter and stored in ice houses for summertime uses.
Excellent video as always, sir. A bit unexpected as a resident of Apalachicola to hear us get mentioned! The John Gorrie historic house, the Ice Machine museum, and the yellow fever cemeteries are important parts of this area's nearly forgotten history. Glad to see we're not the only ones who remember. 😀 Hats off, and bravo.
I have slept many nights on the ground in deserts and awakened with frost on my sleeping bag.
I can remember the Ice man coming to my grandma's house. He grabbed a big block with thongs and put it on his leather covered shoulder and carried it into the house and putting it in the "ice box".
Tongs and thongs; there is a difference.
@@pauleohl Oops! An ice man wearing thongs is not the visual I was going for
Hence why older people will sometimes call the fridge the "ice box".
@@tonyk1584 the iceman comeith.?.?
Thongs... sounds uncomfortable for everyone involved
When I was a kid, in the late 50's and early 60's they still had a big ice-house in East Troy Wisconsin. Blocks were cut from lakes and stored in a huge barn insulated with hay. My dad had several big cookouts every summer where horse troughs filled with block ice, soda, beer and bottles of champagne stayed cold all day.
There are lava tubes in New Mexico (and probably elsewhere) that have ice in them even in the heat of summer.
Really? Sounds interesting!
@@nickraschke4737 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandera_Volcano_Ice_Cave I've been there. I believe there are others as well.
@@stevedietrich8936 gosh. That’s amazing. Thank you!
Many in Idaho.
Nice and cool.down in those caves. The green ice looks neat. It's interesting to hear that they don't know how they exists. There are theories but none are totally agreed on.
Travel trailers in the 60s still had ice boxes. A camping trip would always involve a stop on the way out of town for a block of ice.
And that is why you still find stores that sell both crushed and block ice! The principle still applies when you're away from a proper refrigerator.
My parents once bought an "air conditioner" for their car on a road trip across Nevada. It was a waxed corrugated cardboard box and a block of ice that you fastened into the window of the car. (This would have been in the early 60s.)
Oh yeah whenever I’m road tripping or camping block ice is my best bud!
I remember the milkman would leave the blocks of ice on the curb. It was a great attraction to all the kids in the neighborhood.
I remember "stealing" ice out of the milk truck.
I believe that. I buy bag ice regularly and my red heeler puppy loves to get some.
We all know that Dr. Emmitt Brown was the first to create a machine that produced cubes of ice, after his strange involvement with the McFly family.
"The pre-ice age" 🤣🤣🤣
All those outside the USA (and parts of Canada)…are saying “What is this fascination with ice in beverage???” As a frequent traveler (pre-pandemic) for work…iced beverages are one of the first things I want when I return home!
Outside the USA & Canada this video just left viewers cold I suppose?
Lucas was an English company that made motorcycle
Electrics ,,not very good ones either,,
The joke in England was the poor refrigeration was also
Made by Lucas
Around 1958, I was in third grade and read a story called "Hot as Summer, Cold as Winter." The short version is that a bored prince ordered his staff to come up with something to present to him that was "hot as summer and cold as winter." The staff presented him with a hot-fudge sundae.
I also read that story! about the same time I think too
Thank you for this. I always wondered what the heck people did before modern refrigeration.
I’m impressed that ice could be form outta evaporative cooling at all. Ian’s I was under the falsehood that coolers were invented using ammonia.
Dr Gorrie's icemaker did use ammonia. It is still listed as a refrigerant R717.
Well it's going to kill a lot of people who's been worried what the pyramids were for when it comes to find out they were nothing but elaborate ice machine, 😂
If you put a styrofoam cup of water under a bell jar and turn on the vacuum pump, the water will start to boil at low temperature and you can see the vapor leaving the water. As you continue running the vacuum pump the water gets colder and in a flash turns to ice. I was surprised the first time I saw the demonstration.
A fun science experiment with a kid is to put a bowl of water outside on a chilly, clear night. Like lows in the upper 30s. And go out and see how much ice is on it, even though it didn't get below freezing.
There's ways to set it up to maximize success, and maybe have the kid try to come up with his/her own way to get the most amount of ice. Have them set up multiple experiments in one night, and weigh the results.
This got me thinking of the Crosley icyball.
I made one when I was in my early teens. I don't know what happened to it.
::Sarcastic Voice:: "Great! Now I need to make a new one."
Thirteen weeks ago I bought a new refrigerator with an icemaker. The icemaker was backordered, and was just installed today. How very apt a topic HG.
At my sister's wedding , we chilled her wine, in a cave with a spring that ran thru the back. It was 90 degrees, we checked the wine after four hours, and it was starting to freeze. Lol , cool Mountain spring water.
Common in rural hills - the Spring House was used, not only as a source of drinking water, but to store milk, butter, cheese, meats, and drinks to be served cold. These huts had roofs to keep out debris, a shelf above the waterline to store food, and sometimes hooks from the overhead beams to hang meat and cheese.
Yes. We always called in the cave. Built into the side of a mountain. Thirty feet deep and twelve feet wide. Lined with shelves and a trough at the end, with the spring running thru it. A cool drink in the hottest days. Built for the Mann family, of axe makers. A large and wealthy family.
What year?
1975
My dad still calls a refrigerator an "ice box". Our ice came from places like Boca Reservoir via the Transcontinental Railroad before refrigerators.
In single digit humidity I would get a 30° temperature difference between my house in Phx AZ with 110° temp outside using an evaporative coole and an oscillating fan to move air around. 80° feels surprisingly comfortable when it's that hot outside.
And my electric bill was ridiculously low.
What would you do during monsoon season?
@@V.Hansen.
A/C and fans!
Each history guy video I always find myself saying "who knew this totally uninteresting topic can be so interesting", and that is why I subscribed to this channel in the first place
Exactly!!!
Another of the many things that are under-appreciated today.
agreed
You could do a whole episode just about all the things that have been invented by Scotland!
Scotch????👍🥃
telephone
Technically Kelvin was Irish and Ulsterman of Scottish parents
Golf?
@John Barber Touché
Does anyone else find it ironic that by making these videos, the History Guy is cementing his own place in history? Keep up the good work mate
That's not what irony is.
@@bkbj8282 Wikipedia defines irony as "what on the surface appears to be the case or to be expected differs radically from what is actually the case".
On the surface it appears that History guy talks about historical people. The irony is that by doing this he himself is becoming part of history. I think it fits the definition well enough.
Noone likes a smart alec anyway
I do think about that.
I moved back to Haiti 🇭🇹 few years ago and those huge blocks are what most people buy. Trucks will deliver it to people or they come pick it up and the resell it to the people. I sometimes buy the bags from the market but a big chunk of ice last longer in the igloo. It was crazy seeing it but now I’m use to it.
To help insulate your igloo.
Make a liner from a couple of those bubble foil reflectors for car windows and duct tape.
This will add an additional layer of insulation to an igloo.
@@shawnr771 Thanks I’ll do that
@@livinghaiti1098 Here is a link to the guy I got it from.
czcams.com/video/SKO-oopGvfQ/video.html
Such a COOL piece of history!
🤦♂️This comment hurts. I better put some ice on it. Ice❄️ 💍
That's chilling.
@@HM2SGT Chill Out Bro! 😎
I-ceeeee!!! 👁
@@lachlanwelsh5880 brain freeze
In your research for this piece, did you ever come across the Absorption Refrigerator? Look up Ferdinand Carré who patented the device in 1859 (France) and 1860 (USA). It was used to make "artificial ice", and was a major (if not the dominant) cooling mechanism during that period. I understand the device was one of the hot blockade runner items for the South during the Civil War because their sources of "natural ice" from the north were cut off.
The process is based on a thermodynamic cycle called gas absorption. There are a few variations on the theme, but they are all fundamentally heat pumps where a refrigerant is circulated through high and low pressure phases to create cooling (or heating in some cases). The single effect ammonia water gas absorption cycle was the dominant variation of this process and was a (the?) major source of early air conditioning, refrigeration, and of course, ice-making. The process is driven by heat, as opposed to electricity, which is what we're more familiar with for cooling today. But gas absorption cooling extended well into the 20th century: people who had air conditioning in their homes in the early to mid-1900s most likely used gas air conditioners driven by this process. See this old Dinah Shore commercial: czcams.com/video/S4aiP15EYbs/video.html
While electrically powered heat pumps (air conditioners) are now the dominant source of cooling today, the old gas absorption process is still around. It is still used in some limited applications, such as what drives the propane refrigerator in your RV. Today's modern heat pumps are mostly powered by electricity. But don't write this process off: it is on the verge of making a major comeback in surprising ways. ( see www.StoneMountainTechnologies.com for more information ). Full disclosure: I work there, and am involved in developing the technology into a new generation of ultra-high-efficiency building heat devices.
Great video - very informative about the early processes involved in cooling - I had no idea it extended back so far in history. Thank you!
(Scott Reed)
My grandfather worked for many years at The American Ice Company in Leavenworth Kansas. They harvested ice off of the adjacent(by Alito's defininition ha!) Missouri River. I wouldn't want to put THAT ice in a drink! As refrigerators started to become popular, the ice business's days were numbered. In a drawer somehere, I still have an old ice pick from his company with slogan "Ice Never Fails" printed on the wood handle. It didn't take long for those early refrigerators to become more reliable than what we can buy today. My grandmother's 1946 GE refrigerator ran without a single repair for 50 years. It had to be defrosted a couple of times/year, and I'm sure it wasn't the model of efficiency, but it was running when we unplugged it and hauled it off. It still had the 2 original lever operated aluminum ice cube trays that still worked perfectly. I still remember running them under cold water for a few seconds and tugging on the the handle to release those big square cubes.
As the fleet manager of one of the largest ice companies in North America, I appreciate this video
I grew up in the Adirondacks, where there was once a lot of iron mining. I don't know if it's still done, but one mine in particular supplied a lot of cheap ice for keg parties over the years.
those coolers at 02:40 resemble termite mounds - which also mitigate heat for the colonies inside. Curious if that was adapted or if there was any info gleaned from that source (or if it was a mere coincidence). It's also amusing that there's still a 'gourmet' ice collecting business for iceberg sourced ice.
Keep up the good work THG!!!
I absolutely love how you make something that seems mundane and everyday feel extraordinary ❤️
My father told me..they cut out blocks of ice...from there frozen lake...and covered them with saw dust. Giving them Ice well into summer. Free! Just a lot of labor..and storage in a cellar...or barn.
Minnesota circa 1930’s.
My Dad said having ice cream long into summer depended on how long the ice lasted. N. Dak.
In The National Statuary Hall, each state has 2 statues. One of Florida's is John Gorrie.
I've never been there, but I looked it up. That is quite the collection. THG has featured more than a few of them in his various videos. Now that I know this place exists I'll have to visit if I'm ever in DC again. Thanks.
Thanks.
Patent #8080 ... truly an early inventor who deserves to be remembered!
Florida's population dramatically increased after air conditioning / refrigeration became widely used.
Thanks, H-G! 2 side-stories. I and an old friend from Peoria were talking about the subject. A Dr. In Tallahassee, Dr Carrier, had a number of Tuberculosis patients whose only relief was to move to a warmer climate. He fashioned an air-cooled cottage for them which eventually morphed into Air-Conditioning, so it is told. Also, an enterprising off-shore barge-Captain who regularly came South to Florida during the heyday of Flagler, Barnum, Deering and the like, saw a market for cool, iced drink. So he pulled frozen slabs of ice, packed it in sawdust wrapped in canvas and brought it down. Made his fortune. Must've been cleaner in those days! Lastly, the Peoria deep-sea fisherman said there was a time when a person could get off of a boat in the Bahamas and hold out a bag of ice and before it would melt, it was sold!
Some 3 or 4 decades ago I watched a PBS show written/narrated by James Burke that covered 80% of this. Thanks History Guy for the additional information. Definitely worth the time to watch!!
A man president Garfield would have remembered. Dr. Gorrie the father of modern refrigeration and air conditioning.
Yes, a Gorrie type device was used to make ice to help cool the president's room after he had been shot.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel
Okay, level with us: what were you drinking?
🥤 or 🥃?
Wasn't Garfield assassinated?
@@kenkellar2246 yes. He lingered for almost two months after being shot.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel 2 months?, what a will to live😱
Imagine the financial and social dislocation in New England caused by the introduction of refrigeration to the general public.
I truly love this guy.he can take something as simple as ice and make it fascinating👍👍👍❤❤❤
In the late 1970's and early 1980's before solar panels and battery banks were readily available to power the refrigerator units used today, several of my friends and I would fly into fishing lodges in northern Alberta in the late spring and stock the ice houses of fly in fishing camps.
The ice houses were pretty much as described in the video (dug into the earth and the double log walls were insulated with sawdust. The log walls were chinked with moss).
The ice blocks we cut from the lake and stored in the ice houses would supply the lodges for the entire summer season. We cut the blocks with chainsaws and pulled out the blocks with ice tongs. Big, heavy duty ice tongs! Usually a two man job to pull a block up onto the ice.
Hard work, but we were young men back then and I have many fond memories of those trips! Good times.
This was truly great to see on a 95° day, and I bless Mr Carrier and all of his descendants for commercializing air conditioning.
I saw the ice houses on the beach in Madras India once, and learned that New England lake ice was sent there by clipper ship.
It would be interesting to see an episode on the American Icehouse, a long-forgotten business. Initially they were designed to only store ice, but in many towns, they also became the local bar and hangout. They were the only place in the summer to get cold beer or other drinks, so many icehouse owners opened them up to the public. They were gathering places for towns and often they were the morgue (the only place to store a body). Many of these buildings are still in existence across America. My favorite is in Punta Gorda Florida. It's actually called the Ice House Pub. The buildings walls are about four feet thick, built of brick and the building is about four stories tall, designed to move the heat from the ice. The social aspects of the Icehouse is history that deserves to be remembered.
My great grandfather delivered ice in NYC in the early 1900's. It was told to us that he was one of the first to use a gas powered delivery truck! Love this channel
Fascinating history. Now I'm gonna have to research those Persian evaporative coolers.
They are called Yakhchāl, and several examples still exist.
I heard about them from a sustainable building project magazine.
The building was going to use some of the same principles to maintain the internal temperatures.
One of the reasons they quit being used was the introduction of contaminants into the ice such as sand.
The book Racing Alone was where I first learned of desert cooling and freezing systems. Worth a read.
There are still people in our town that worked for the local ice house. I live along the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, and they cut ice from the river around here and stored it all summer. We also have ice caves in the area that have ice in them naturally year-round. There are plants that grow near their mouths that are only found in the artic and here.
My dad recalled watching ice harvesters on a pond near Fall River when he was a kid. They'd pack the blocks in sawdust and/or hay and it would somehow last all summer. Between the ice box (a terrifying contraption imo) and the cold box on the north-side windowsill, that's all there was when he was growing up.
My father, his brothers, and some of their friends were some of the last Ice Harvesters in Southern New Hampshire, cutting ice until the late 1940s. My family had been harvesting ice since roughly 1920. It's interesting to note that at a time when we had developed nuclear power, supersonic flight, and were preparing for space travel, that we were still cutting ice as we had for more than a century.
What is fascinating about transporting the ice such long distances in sailing ships was that the chips themselves did not require special construction or preparation. The ability to cut the ice into large, uniform blocks, insulated between layers, and packed closely in the holds kept the ice from melting, and, perhaps more importantly, the load from shifting in heavy weather - loose ice could easily capsize a ship, or even punch through the hull.
While rural electrification spread the use of mechanical refrigerators, there are no-moving parts systems that require just an external heat source. They are in use today in RVs, and in remote locations where electric power is generally not available.
Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard invented a non-electrical refrigerator in the 1920s. Their design is still in use in systems like nuclear reactor cooling systems, where simplicity and reliability are paramount. (That story may be history that's worth remembering.)
Very interesting experiences your family had! By the way, one of the innovations the Ice King was responsible for was making double-walled hulls on his ships to transport ice; he filled the space between the wall/hull with straw to insulate the ice en route to India.
This episode is so well researched, it gave me chills!
There are still ice handling tongs hanging in the basement of the family farmhouse my grandfather, father, and now I own. I remember as a child in the 60s being a bit incredulous when Dad explained what they were for. Didn't ice just come out of the freezer???
In our Boston suburb, the town pond where we swim and sail was originally an ice pond used for harvesting ice.
finally a history guy with a pleasant voice and just the right tempo.
Growing up in Australia going to the "fridge" was a family affair getting yelled at by both parents because of opening the door 100 times a day
I read somewhere that Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard patented a method of making ice with methanol. It worked fairly well but the increased demand for methanol for other purposes raised the price until it became uneconomical.
Yes you can look up the design online.
I have seen the illustrations of the device.
Almost any gas can be used. Some are more efficient and safer than the others.
@@shawnr771 Indeed. I used to have a camper, and the refrigerator inside was cooled with propane. Ingenious, considering you already carry a tank of the stuff to run the stove and furnace.
Cool.
One of the biggest businesses in the rural Idaho town when I was growing up was the Feed and Ice company. Didn’t think much of it then, but learned some interesting things as I got older. The ice was made in big blocks in rectangular sheet metal cans using liquid ammonia as the coolant. The huge ice blocks were used to cool spud cellars. Grandpa had one on his farm. The spud cellar was a sunken structure with a roof of straw bales covered over with earth. The empty spud cellar was cool year round by itself. The ice would have cooled the spuds stored there.
I really enjoyed the ending - where The History Guy enjoys his iced drink!😁😉. Thanks.
Harvesting ice was a big business here in Madison, WI through the end of WWII. In the Winter many farmers, in their off season, from the surrounding area would show up to the 'city of four lakes' to harvest the ice to be shipped to Chicago and Milwaukee for the brewing and meat packing industries. Huge ice houses, some several hundred feet long, were once found on the shores of our lakes here. All gone now, but they were once a good source of income for the locals in the Winter months. But with the introduction of mass produced and safe refrigeration, the era of the ice harvests ended.
When I was a kid people still called refrigerators "Ice Boxes." Ice used to be delivered to houses in large blocks and the block was put in the top of an icebox. as the ice melted the chilled air would go down in the box it would cool whatever was put in it. My Dad worked in an ice house in the 1940s before he enlisted in the Marines. When I was a kid we bought ice in blocks or cubes from the ice house where we lived.
We will likely do a separate episode on the history of refrigeration.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel I will be looking forward to that.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel please do! It'll be as cool a topic as this video.
This episode has appeared just two days after a first ever purchase of a Magic Chef Ice Cube Machine...."Cool Synchronicity!"
I was very happy with this addition on Ice. My childhood was full of 'Ice Houses' in Long Island , NY. Every pond or lake had it's ice house at it's shores. By the 1950's these were subject to disuse, vandalism, and fires. My Dad was the fire chief and I could ride along to the latest ' big blaze' of the past night. Because of the insolation being saw dust, these ice houses would flare up again and again. So much so that it caused me to be turned to 'ice making' and 'solar heating'.
It’s so insane that we take freezing water for granted
How are people taking it for granted?
@@YadaYah Well, they let it melt for one thing.
@@jeffaller6190 How is that taking it for granted exactly?
@@YadaYah Because letting ice melt is not cool, that's how.
@@jeffaller6190 How else is ice supposed to melt and why is that somehow being taken for granted?
I love the history of common items like ice
I recently moved to the Kennebec River Valley in Maine. The ice industry is part of history here.
I used to run a Victorian house museum; on tours, when grandparents saw the icebox in the kitchen, they loved to share the stories of growing up with ice delivery to the grandkids they brought with them. I pretty much let them lead the kitchen tour, since they had seen it all!
There are advantages of cutting blocks of ice from a lake though, it is very hard to get totally clear ice from a refrigerator.
Dave Arnold explains the process and how to actually make clear ice in his book "Liquid intelligence", I recommend it.
However, while I did bother to make some really clear ice it was more work then it was worth even if it made a GT look extra awesome.
The existing market for natural ice is for ice sculptures, because the ice is so clear.
@@BruceLortzHI The thing is that ice naturally freezes from above on a lake and it tend to push all gas and other junk below making it crystal clear.
When you freeze ice cubes it freezes from all around, trapping any gas (and whatever else you have in your tapwater) in the middle, giving you that ugly thing in the middle.
Now, if you isolate everything but the top the ice get clear but not all the way, you will still have to cut away the bottom of the cube to have it really clear.
There are professional places that make ice this way but I am not sure how LG get the pollutants out of the water.
Ice is certainly nice (it is really hot here today) and I am going to use it for a drink soon. :)
@@BruceLortzHI That makes sense, if you can filter out any pollutants and gas and freeze it slowly it would get pretty clear.
Still, I used more then 3 2" cubes today already by myself so I don't think it is a perfect solution, you have to save up quite a lot for a cocktail party.
Ice is pretty fascinating and I don't want to live without it during summer days like this. Well, I guess I could buy an AC but I live so far up north that the idea seems a bit ludicrous to me.
@@loke6664 Boiling water drives out dissolved gasses. Don't know if LG boils the water before it freezes.
@@pauleohl It does but if you stick in hot water and cool it down fast you still get a really muddy ice cube.
Boiling or just having really warm water and first let it cool down in room temperature before freezing it do help but it still wont get totally clear.
What I did instead was taking a large square form about 3" deep and isolate it on the sides and bottom. Once it freezes the top 2" will actually get perfectly clear, the problem is that I have to first cut away the last " and then cut them into squares.
That is a whole lot of work but work it does and I didn't boil it first, it is possible that there would be less to cut away then.
Ohhhhh Lance, if ever there was "history worth being remembered," this is it! Great video! As a resident of the Gulf Coast, I'm familiar with the Gorrie Museum in Apalachicola - and his invention - which was intended to provide cool air for the sufferers of yellow fever. So he really invented two things: Air conditioning and the ice machine!
Back then, there were "ice cartels" similar to the oil cartels of the 1980's. The smear campaign against Dr. Gorrie was effective. Even the New York Times ran a scoffing article about Dr. Gorrie with the headline, "Only God Can Make Ice." Which wasn't true, of course. As you mentioned, Dr. Gorrie died broke and humiliated. His patents expired, later to be picked up as the air conditioning industry took off.
Every time we drink a frozen margarita down here (which we do a lot!), we toast to our hero, Dr. John Gorrie, who made it all possible.
Cheers! Another interesting one, thanks.
The first refrigerator (complete with a tiny ice maker) in our family was bought by my parents when I was born in 1955. It was in fact gas powered but converted to electricity later.
I work at a family owned popcorn and ice cream stand open since 1885 in Salem, MA. And they have the saws they used to cut ice blocks with in the winter for the old time walk in freezer. My boss now uses them to keep his ice rink crisp in the winter.