The ice trade , also known as frozen water trade , is a 19th century and early 20th century industry, centered on the east coast of the United States and Norway. , which involves a massive harvest, transport and sale of natural ice, and then the manufacture and sale of artificial ice, for domestic consumption and commercial purposes. Ice is cut from the surface of ponds and rivers, then stored in ice houses, before being shipped by ship, barge or train to destinations worldwide. Ice carriage networks are typically used to distribute products to smaller domestic and small commercial customers. Ice trade revolutionized the meat, vegetable and fruit industries in the US, enabling significant growth in the fishing industry, and encouraging the introduction of new beverages and foods.
This trade was started by New England entrepreneur Frederic Tudor in 1806. Tudor sent ice to the Caribbean island of Martinique, hoping to sell it to the wealthy European elite there, using an ice house he built specifically for that purpose. Over the coming years, trade widened to Cuba and the southern United States, with other merchants joining Tudor in harvesting and ice shipping from New England. During the 1830s and 1840s ice trade expanded, with deliveries reaching the UK, India, South America, China, and Australia. Tudor got profits from the Indian trade, while brand names like Wenham Ice became famous in London.
However, increasing ice trade began to focus on providing growing cities on the east coast of the US and business needs throughout the Midwest. New York City and Philadelphia residents become very large ice consumers over a long hot summer, and additional ice is harvested from the Hudson River and Maine to meet demand. Ice began to be used in refrigerator cars by the railroad industry, enabling meatpacking industries around Chicago and Cincinnati to slaughter cattle locally, sending meat to the east for internal or overseas markets. Cool refrigerator cars and ships create a national industry in vegetables and fruits that previously could only be consumed locally. American and British fishermen are beginning to conserve their catch on the ice, allowing longer voyages and larger catches, and the brewing industry becomes operational throughout the year. When the ice of US exports was reduced after 1870, Norway became a major player in the international market, delivering large quantities of ice to Britain and Germany.
At the height of the late 19th century, the US ice trade employs about 90,000 people in a capitalized industry of $ 28 million ($ 660 million in 2010), using an ice house capable of storing up to 250,000 tons (220 million kg) each; Norway exports one million tonnes (910 million kg) of ice a year, drawing on an artificial lake network. Competition has slowly grown, however, in the form of artificially produced ice crops and mechanically cooled facilities. Unreliable and expensive initially, ice crops began to successfully compete with natural ice in Australia and India during the 1850s and 1870s, until, with the outbreak of World War I in 1914, more ice crops were produced in the US each year of the naturally harvested ice. Despite the temporary increase in US production during the war, the inter-war years saw the collapse of total worldwide ice trade. Today, ice is sometimes harvested for ice and ice carving festivals, but little remains of ice industry and transport facilities of the 19th century.
Video Ice trade
History
The pre-19th century method
Before the advent of ice trade in the 19th century, snow and ice had been collected and stored for use in summer months in various parts of the world, but never on a large scale. In the Mediterranean and in South America, for example, there is a long history of gathering ice from the upper slopes of the Alps and the Andes during the summer months and traders transporting them to the cities. Similar trade practices had grown in Mexico during the colonial period. The Russians collected ice along the Neva River during the winter months for consumption in Saint Petersburg for many years. Rich Europeans began building ice houses to store the ice collected in their local plantations during the winter of the sixteenth century and beyond; ice is used to cool drinks or food for the richest elite.
Several techniques were also created to produce ice or cold drinks through more artificial means. In India, ice was imported from the Himalayas in the 17th century, but this cost means that in the 19th century ice was produced in small quantities during the winter farther south. Porous clay pots containing cooled boiling water are placed on the straw in shallow trenches; in favorable circumstances, thin ice will form on the surface during the winter nights that can be harvested and combined for sale. There are production sites in Hugli-Chuchura and Allahabad, but these "hard ice" are only available in limited quantities and are considered of poor quality because they often resemble soft sludge rather than hard crystals. Saltpeter and water are mixed together in India to cool drinks, taking advantage of local chemical supplies. In Europe, various chemical ways to cool drinks were created in the 19th century; This sulfuric acid is usually used to cool the liquid, but is unable to produce the actual ice.
Opening trading, 1800-30
The ice trade began in 1806 as a result of the efforts of Frederic Tudor, a New England businessman, to export ice commercially. In New England, ice is an expensive product, consumed only by wealthy people who can afford their own ice house. Nevertheless, ice houses were relatively common among richer members of the community in 1800, filled with pieces of ice, or harvested, from the surface of ponds and frozen streams on their local plantations during the winter months. Around the neighboring New York City area, hot summers and rapid economic growth have begun to increase local ice demand by the end of the 18th century, creating a small market among farmers who sell ice from their ponds and rivers to local municipalities. institutions and families. Some ships sometimes carry ice from New York and Philadelphia to be sold to the southern US states, especially Charleston in South Carolina, putting it as a weight on the go.
The Tudor plan was to export ice as a luxury to the wealthy West Indies and southern states, where he hoped they would enjoy the product during the hot summers; aware of the risk that others will follow him, Tudor hopes to gain local monopoly rights in his new market to keep prices and profits high. He began by trying to build a monopoly over a potential ice trade in the Caribbean and invested in a brigantine vessel to transport ice purchased from farmers around Boston. At that time, Tudor was considered by the business community as something eccentric, and at worst stupid.
The first shipment occurred in 1806 when Tudor moved the ice-trial charge, probably harvested from his family's estate in Rockwood, to the Caribbean island of Martinique. However, sales are hampered by the lack of local storage facilities, both for the Tudor stock and any ice purchased by domestic customers, and consequently the stock of ice quickly melts. Learning from this experience, Tudor then built a functioning ice depot in Havana and, despite a US trade embargo announced in 1807, was successfully traded again in 1810. He could not obtain the exclusive legal right to import ice into Cuba but was able to maintaining an effective monopoly through its control of ice houses. The war of 1812 briefly disrupted trade, but over the following years Tudor began exporting fruit back from Havana to the mainland on the return journey, remaining refreshed with part of an unsold load of ice. Trade to Charleston and to Savannah in Georgia followed, while Tudor's competitors began supplying South Carolina and Georgia by ship from New York or using a barge sent downstream from Kentucky.
The price of imported ice varies according to the amount of economic competition; in Havana, the Tudor ice sells for 25 cents ($ 3.70 in 2010) per pound, while in Georgia it only reaches six to eight cents ($ 0.90- $ 1.20 in 2010). Where the Tudor has a strong market share, it will respond to competition from the passing merchant by lowering the price, selling the ice at an unfavorable penny ($ 0.20) per pound (0.5 kg); at this price, competitors usually can not sell their own shares with profit: they will be pushed into debt or if they refuse to sell, their ice will melt in the heat. Tudor, relying on its local storage depot, can increase the price once more. In the mid-1820s, about 3,000 tonnes (3 million kg) of ice was being sent from Boston every year, two-thirds by Tudor.
At this lower price, ice starts to sell in considerable quantities, with the market moving beyond the rich elite to a wider range of consumers, to the point where inventories become overwhelmed. It is also used by traders to keep perishable goods, rather than for direct consumption. Tudor looks beyond the existing suppliers to Maine and even harvests from the icebergs that pass by, but no source proves to be practical. Instead, Tudor is working with Nathaniel Wyeth to exploit Boston's ice supply on a more industrial scale. Wyeth invented a new form of horse-drawn ice cutters in 1825 that cut square blocks more efficiently than previous methods. He agreed to supply the Tudor from Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, reducing the cost of ice from 30 cents ($ 7.30) per ton (901 kg) to just 10 cents ($ 2.40). Sawdust to isolate ice is brought from Maine, for $ 16,000 ($ 390,000) per year.
Globalization, 1830-50
New England ice trade expanded during the 1830s and 1840s on the east coast of the US, while new trade routes were made worldwide. The first and most lucrative of this new route is to India: in 1833, Tudor teamed up with businessmen Samuel Austin and William Rogers to try to export ice to Calcutta by brigantine Tuscany. The Anglo-Indian elite, concerned about the effects of summer heat, quickly agreed to exempt imports from regular Indian Company regulations and trade tariffs, and early net shipments of around one hundred tonnes (90,000 kg) were sold. With ice taken for three pence (Ã, Â £ 0.80 in term 2010) per pound (0.5 kg), the first shipment in Tuscany yielded a profit of $ 9,900 ($ 253,000), and in 1835 Tudor started a regular export to Calcutta , Madras and Bombay.
Competitors Tudor immediately entered the market as well, sending ice through the sea to Calcutta and Bombay, increasing demand there and expel most of indigenous ice traders. A large ice house was built of stone in Calcutta by a local English community to store imported ice. Small shipments of cold fruits and dairy products started shipping with ice, reaching high prices. Attempts were made by Italian merchants to introduce ice from the Alps into Calcutta, but Tudor repeated his monopolistic techniques from the Caribbean, prompting them and many others out of the market. Calcutta has remained a very profitable ice market for many years; Tudor alone made a profit of over $ 220,000 ($ 4.7 million) between 1833 and 1850.
Other new markets followed. In 1834 Tudor sent ice shipments to Brazil along with cold apples, starting ice trading with Rio de Janeiro. These ships usually return to North America carrying sugar, fruit and then, cotton. Ice from merchants in New England reached Sydney, Australia, in 1839, initially sold with three pence (Ã, Â £ 0.70) per pound (0.5 kg), then rose to six pence (Ã, Â £ 1, 40). This trade proved to be less orderly, and subsequent deliveries arrived in the 1840s. Exports of cold vegetables, fish, butter and eggs to the Caribbean and markets in the Pacific grew during the 1840s, with as many as 35 barrels transported by one ship, in addition to ice charges. New England ice shipping is delivered as far as Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Philippines, Persian Gulf, New Zealand, Argentina and Peru.
New England entrepreneurs also tried to build a market for ice in Britain during the 1840s. The first failed attempt to export ice to Britain occurred in 1822 under William Leftwich; he has imported ice from Norway, but his cargo has melted before reaching London. New efforts were made by Jacob Hittinger who had supplies at Fresh Pond, and Eric Landor, with assets at Wenham Lake, in 1842 and 1844 respectively. From both, Landor's efforts were more successful and he formed the Lake Wenham Ice Company for export to the UK, building an ice depot on the Strand. Es Wenham is marketed as unbelievably pure, has special cooling properties, manages to convince British customers to avoid the local English ice, which is condemned as tainted and unhealthy. After some initial successes, the effort ultimately failed, in part because Britain chose not to adopt cold drinks in the same way as North America, but also because of the long distance involved in trade and the costs of wasting ice through smelting. Nonetheless, trading allowed for some refrigerated goods to arrive in the UK from America along with ice cargo during the 1840s.
The eastern US coast is also beginning to consume more ice, especially as more industrial and personal customers find use for cooling. Ice is becoming increasingly used in the northeastern United States to maintain fresh dairy and fruit products for the market, cold goods transported over railways that continue to grow. In the 1840s, ice was used to transfer a small quantity of goods farther west across the continent. The Eastern US fishermen started using ice to preserve their catch. Fewer businesses or individuals in the eastern part harvest their own ice independently in winter, most reliant on commercial providers.
With growth in this trade, Tudor's early monopolies on trading failed, but he continued to make significant gains from emerging trades. Increased ice inventory is also needed to meet demand. From 1842 onwards, Tudor and others invested in Walden Pond in New England for additional supplies. New companies are starting to emerge, such as the Philadelphia Ice Company, which utilizes a new railway to transport harvested ice, while the Kershow family introduces an increase in ice harvest to the New York region.
Growth westward, 1850-60
The 1850s was a transitional period for ice trading. The industry is already quite large: in 1855 about $ 6-7 million ($ 118-138 million in 2010) invested in industries in the US and an estimated two million tons (two billion kg) of ice was stored in warehouses at every one in the warehouse across the nation. However, in the coming decade, the growing focus of trade is shifting from relying on international export markets in order to supply first the expanding eastern US cities, and then the fast-growing countries.
In 1850, California was in the midst of a gold rush; backed by this sudden demand for luxury, the New England company made its first shipment, by ship to San Francisco and Sacramento, in California, including the delivery of cooled apples. The market is proven, but ice delivery in this way is expensive and demand outstrips supply. Ice began to be ordered from Alaska controlled by Russia in 1851 for $ 75 per ton (901 kg). The American-Russian Commercial Company was later formed in San Francisco in 1853 to work in partnership with Alaska-America Alaska Company to supply ice to the west coast of America. The Russian company trained the Aleutian team to harvest ice in Alaska, built a sawmill to produce sawdust insulation and shipped ice to the south along with cold fish supply. The cost of this operation remains high and M. Tallman established the rival Nevada Ice Company, which harvests ice at Pilot Creek and is transported to Sacramento, bringing the west coast price for ice down to seven cents ($ 2) per pound (0.5 kg).
The US is expanding to the west and, in Ohio, Hiram Joy began exploiting Crystal Lake, near Chicago, which was soon associated with the city by the Chicago company, St Paul and the Fond du Lac Railroad. Ice is used to allow goods to be brought to market. Cincinnati and Chicago began using ice to help pack pork in the summer, John L. Schooley developed the first cold packing chamber. Fruits begin to be stored in central Illinois using refrigerators, to be consumed in subsequent seasons. In the 1860s, ice was used to allow beer brewing to become increasingly popular throughout the year. Increased rail links are helping business growth throughout the region and to the east.
Meanwhile, it has been known since 1748 that it was possible to cool water artificially with mechanical equipment and attempts were made in the late 1850s to produce artificial ice on a commercial scale. Various methods have been created to do this, including Jacob Perkins's diethyl ether vapor refrigeration refrigeration machine, discovered in 1834; machines that use pre-compressed air; John Gorrie air cycle machine; and ammonia-based approaches such as those fought by Ferdinand Carrà ©  © and Charles Tellier. Products produced in various ways are called artificial plants or ice, but there are many obstacles to commercially producing them. Producing ice crops requires a large amount of fuel, in the form of coal, and capital for machinery, thus producing ice at a very challenging competitive price. Initial technology was unreliable and for decades ice factory faced the risk of explosion and damage caused to the surrounding buildings. An ammonia-based approach has the potential to leave harmful ammonia in the ice that has leaked through the joints of the machine. For much of the 19th century, plant ice was not as clear as natural ice, sometimes leaving a white residue when it melts and is generally considered less suitable for human consumption than natural products.
However, Alexander Twining and James Harrison set up an ice factory in Ohio and Melbourne respectively during the 1850s, both using Perkins machines. Twining found he could not compete with natural ice, but at Melbourne Harrison factory came to dominate the market. Australia's distance from New England, where the journey could take 115 days, and consequently a high level of waste - 150 tons of the first 400-tonne shipment to Sydney melts on the route - making it relatively easy for plant ice to compete with natural products. Elsewhere, however, natural ice dominates the entire market.
Expansion and competition, 1860-80
International ice trade continued into the second half of the 19th century, but further away from its former, New England roots. Indeed, export ice from the US peaked around 1870, when 65,802 tonnes (59,288,000 kg), worth $ 267,702 ($ 4,610,000 in 2010 terms), was shipped out of the port. One factor in this regard is the slow spread of plant ice to India. Exports from New England to India peaked in 1856, when 146,000 tonnes (132 million kg) were shipped, and Indian natural ice markets faltered during the Indian Uprising of 1857, dipping again during the American Civil War, and imports of ice slowly declined through the 1860s. Driven by the introduction of artificial ice crops worldwide by the Royal Navy, the International Ice Company was founded in Madras in 1874 and the Bengal Ice Company in 1878. Operating together as the Ice Association of Calcutta, they quickly drove the natural ice out. market.
Ice trade is also growing in Europe. In the 1870s hundreds were employed to cut ice from glaciers in Grindelwald in Switzerland, and Paris in France began importing ice from all over Europe in 1869. Meanwhile, Norway entered international ice trade, focusing on exports to the UK. The first shipments from Norway to England occurred in 1822, but large-scale exports did not occur until the 1850s. The ice harvest initially centered on the fjords on the west coast, but poor local transport networks pushed trade south and east into the major centers of the Norwegian timber and shipbuilding industries, both of which are essential for the export of ice. In the early 1860s, Lake OppegÃÆ'Â¥r rd in Norway changed its name to "Lake Wenham" with the purpose of confusing the product with New England exports, and exports to the UK increased. Originally it was run by British business interests, but ultimately transferred to a Norwegian company. Norway's ice distribution in Britain is aided by a growing rail network, while rail connections built between Grimsby and London's fishing ports in 1853 created ice demand to allow the transport of fresh fish to the capital.
The eastern market for ice in the US also changed. Cities like New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia saw their population explosion in the second half of the century; New York tripled in size between 1850 and 1890, for example. This drives ice demand across the region. In 1879, householders in eastern cities consumed two-thirds of a ton (601 kg) of ice per year, which cost 40 cents ($ 9.30) per 100 pounds (45 kg); 1,500 carts needed just to deliver ice to consumers in New York.
In supplying this demand, ice trade is increasingly shifting northward, away from Massachusetts and into Maine. Various factors contribute to this. The New Englands winter became warmer during the 19th century, while industrialization produced more contaminated natural ponds and streams. Less trade was brought through New England as another way of reaching the western US market opened, making it less profitable for ice trading than Boston, while ship production costs in the region increased due to deforestation. Finally, in 1860 there was the first of four hungry frosts throughout the warm winter in Hudson that prevented ice formation in New England-creating shortages and raising prices.
The outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 between the northern and southern states also contributed to the trend. The war disrupted northern ice sales to the south, and Maine merchants instead turned to supplying the Union Armed Forces, whose troops used ice in their more southern campaigns. James L. Cheeseman had responded to the famine of 1860 by moving his ice business trade from Hudson north to Maine, bringing in the latest technology and techniques; Cheeseman went on to win a valuable contract with the Union Army during the war years. The ice machine Carrà © brought to New Orleans to cover the flaws in the south, with a special focus on hospital provision in the south. In the postwar years, the number of such plants increased, but once the competition from the north returned, the cheaper natural ice initially made it difficult for producers to make a profit. In the late 1870s, efficiency improvements enabled them to extinguish natural ice from the market in the south.
Another icy drought in 1870 then impacted both Boston and Hudson, with subsequent shortages following in 1880; as a result employers descended on the Kennebec River in Maine as an alternative source. The Kennebec, along with Penboscot and Sheepscot, widely opened to the ice industry, became an important source, especially in the warm winter, during the rest of the 19th century.
In the 1860s, natural ice was increasingly being used to move western American products to the east, starting with cold meats from Chicago. There were some early opposition, both from livestock owners and from the eastern butchers, who stood up to lose to trade; by the 1870s, however, some shipments departed east every day. Cold butter from the mid-West was then sent on and on from New York to Europe, and by the 1870s 15 percent of the UK's butter consumption was fulfilled in this way. A chain of ice sheet stations in Chicago, Omaha, Utah, and Sierra Nevada allow railway fridge cars to cross the continent. The ability of ice companies to ship their products by train from the east proves the last straw for Alaskan ice trading, which collapsed during the 1870s and 1880s in the face of competition, destroying the local saw industry in the process.
During the 1870s ice began to be used by Timothy Eastman, from the Bell Brothers company, to transport American meat to Britain; the first shipment successfully arrived in 1875 and in the following year 9.888 tons (8,909,000 kg) of meat were delivered. Cold meat is sold through warehouses and specialty stores. There is concern in Britain that cold American meat may flood the market and endanger domestic farmers, but exports continue. Chicago-based meat companies Armor and Swift entered the refrigerated meat transportation market in late 1870, building their own fleet of refrigerator cars, irrigation station networks and other infrastructure, boosting cold Chicago beef sales to the east coast from 15,680 ton (14,128,000 kg) per year in 1880, to 173,067 tonnes (155,933,000 kg) in 1884.
Top of the trade, 1880-1900
Although the manufacture of artificial plant ice can still be ignored in 1880, it began to grow in volume by the end of this century as technological upgrades eventually enabled the production of plant ice at competitive prices. Usually the first ice plants are held in more remote locations where natural ice is at a cost loss. The Australian and Indian markets were already dominated by ice plants, and ice plants began to be built in Brazil during the 1880s and 1890s, slowly coming to replace imported ice. In the US, plants are starting to become more numerous in the southern states. Long-distance transport companies continue to use low-cost natural ice for most of their cooling needs, but they now use locally grown cereal purchased at key points across the US, to allow a surge in demand and to avoid the need to hold back natural reserves. Ice. After 1898 the British fishery industry also began to shift to growing ice to cool its catch.
Plant technology is beginning to move to the immediate space and cold container problem, to replace the need to bring ice at all. The pressure began to grow to substitute ice bunkers on trans-Atlantic routes during the 1870s. Tellier produced a cold warehouse for the Le Frigorifique steamers, using it to ship beef from Argentina to France, while the Glasgow-based Bells helped sponsor a new compressed air chiller for ships using Gorrie's Approach, called the design Bell-Coleman. This technology was soon used in trade to Australia, New Zealand and Argentina. The same approach began in other industries. Carl von Linde discovered how to apply mechanical cooling to the brewing industry, eliminating its reliance on natural ice; cold warehouse and meat packing began to depend on cold plants.
Although this competition emerges, natural ice remains important for North American and European economies, with demand driven by rising living standards. The large demand for ice in 1880 encouraged natural trade ice to continue growing. About four million tons (four billion kg) of ice is routinely stored along the Hudson and Maine Rivers alone, Hudson has about 135 large warehouses along its banks and employs 20,000 workers. The company expanded along the Kennebec River in Maine to meet demand, and 1,735 vessels were needed in 1880 to bring ice in the south. Lakes in Wisconsin began to be put into production to supply the Midwest. In 1890, another famine struck the eastern part: the harvest at Hudson failed miserably, causing a sudden rush by the entrepreneurs to set up operations in Maine, where ice was already forming. Unfortunately for investors, next summer is quite cold, suppressing demand for stocks and many entrepreneurs are destroyed. In the US, an estimated 90,000 people and 25,000 horses are involved in trading for $ 28 million ($ 660 million in 2010).
Norwegian trade peaked during the 1890s, with one million tons (900 million kg) of ice exported from Norway in 1900; Leftwich's premier company in the UK, imports much of this, storing one thousand tons (900,000 kg) of ice in the store at all times to meet demand. Austria entered the European ice market behind Norway, with the Vienna Ice Company exporting natural ice to Germany by the end of the century.
There are many conglomerates in the US ice trade by the end of the century, and foreign competitors, such as Norway, complain about US collusion. Charles W. Morse was a businessman from Maine who in 1890 had used questionable financial processes to gain control of the New York City Ice Company and New York Consumer Ice Company, incorporating them into the Consolidated Ice Company. In turn, Morse bought his main competitor, Ice Knickerbocker Company in New York in 1896, giving him control of about four million tonnes (four billion kg) of regional ice harvest each year. Morse put some of his remaining rivals to the American Ice Company in 1899, giving him control over all the supply and distribution of natural ice and plants in the northeastern United States. On the west coast, Edward Hopkins formed the Union Ice Company in San Francisco, bringing together regional ice companies to produce other large ice companies. In contrast, competition in the UK market remains harsh, keeping prices relatively low.
End of trade, 20th century
Natural ice trades were quickly replaced by cooling and ice cooling systems during the early years of the 20th century. New plant ice production in New York doubled between 1900 and 1910 and, by 1914, 26 million tonnes (23 billion kg) of plant ice was being produced in the US each year compared to 24 million tonnes (22 billion kg) of natural crop. Ice. There is a similar trend worldwide - Britain has 103 ice factories in 1900, for example - and this makes it increasingly unprofitable to import ice from the US. the annual imported ice fell to less than 15,000 tonnes (13 million kg) in 1910. This was reflected in the trade publication that changed their name: Ice Trade Journal , for example, self-translation World Cooler .
The tendency toward artificial ice accelerated by regular ice hunger during that period, such as the British hunger of 1898, which usually led to rapid price increases, sparked demand for ice crops and encouraged investment in new technologies. Concerns also grow above the natural ice safety. Initial reports of ice resulting from polluted or unclean lakes and rivers first appeared in the US since the 1870s. British public health authorities believe Norwegian ice is generally much purer and safer than American sourced ice, but a report in 1904 noted the risks of contamination on the way and recommended a move to the use of plant ice. In 1907, New York specialists claimed ice from the Hudson River to be unsafe for consumption and potentially containing typhoid; the report was successfully challenged by the natural ice industry, but public opinion turned against natural ice for safety reasons. The fear of this contamination is often played by artificial ice producers in their advertisements. Major damage also occurred in firms, including the well-known fires at the American Ice Company facility in Iceboro in 1910, which destroyed adjacent buildings and schooners, caused about $ 130,000 ($ 2.3 million in 2010) damage and paralyze Maine industries ice.
In response to this increasing competition, natural ice companies examine options. Some are invested in plant ice itself. New tools were brought in to accelerate the ice harvest, but this increased efficiency was more than technical progress in ice-making. The Natural Ice Association of America was formed to promote the benefits of natural ice, and the company plays the wrong belief among customers that natural ice melts more slowly than artificial ice. Under pressure, some ice companies are trying to exploit their local monopoly on ice distribution networks to raise prices for urban customers artificially. One of the most notable cases in this regard was Charles Morse and his American Ice Company, which suddenly jumped three-fold and doubled retail prices in New York in 1900 amid a heat wave; this created a scandal that caused Morse to sell his assets in ice trading altogether to avoid prosecution, generating $ 12 million ($ 320 million) in profits in the process.
When the US entered World War I in 1917, the American ice trade received a temporary boost for production. Cold food deliveries to Europe soared during the war, placing significant demands on the country's existing cooling capabilities, while the need to produce ammunition for war effort meant that ammonia and coal for refrigeration plants were in short supply. The US government is working with natural ice factories and factories to promote the use of natural ice to lighten the burden and maintain adequate inventory. However, for England and Norway, the war had a negative impact on the trade of natural ice; Germany's efforts to block the North Sea with U-ships made deliveries difficult and Britain increasingly depended on the limited number of ice factories for supplies instead.
In the years after the war, the natural ice industry collapsed into meaninglessness. The industry turned completely into an ice factory and a mechanical cooling system and the introduction of cheap electric motors produced modern and domestic refrigerators that became common in US homes in the 1930s and more widely throughout Europe in the 1950s, enabling ice to be made at home. Natural ice harvests shrink dramatically and ice sheds are abandoned or converted for other uses. The use of natural ice on a small scale remained in more remote areas for several years, and the ice continues to be sometimes harvested for carving in artistic competitions and festivals, but by the end of the 20th century there were few physical reminders of trade.
Maps Ice trade
Supply
In order for natural ice to reach its customers, it must be harvested from ponds and rivers, then transported and stored in various locations before being used in domestic or commercial applications. Throughout this process, traders face the problem of keeping the ice from melting; melting ice represents waste and loss of profit. In the 1820s and 1830s only 10 percent of the harvested ice was eventually sold to end users due to wastage on the way. By the end of the 19th century, however, waste in the ice trade was reduced to between 20 and 50 percent, depending on the efficiency of the company.
Harvest
Ice trade begins by harvesting ice from ponds and rivers during the winter, to be stored during the coming summer months. The water freezes in this way after falling to a temperature of 40 Â ° F (5 Â ° C) and the surrounding air temperature drops to 32 Â ° F (0 Â ° C). The ice should be at least 18 inches (0.46 m) thick for harvesting, as it is necessary to support the weight of the worker and the horse and is suitable for cutting into large blocks. In New England, ponds and rivers usually have deep ice for harvest between January and March, while in Norway the harvest takes place between December and February. Natural ice can occur with different qualities; the most valuable are the hard and clear crystal ice, usually consumed on the table; ice is more porous, white is less valuable and is used by industry. With a good ice thickness, about 1,000 tons (900,000 kg) can be harvested from surface water covering an area of ​​0.4 hectares.
Pure natural sources are insufficient in some areas and additional steps are taken to improve inventory. In New England, holes were drilled in the ice to increase surface thickening. Alternatively, artificial lakes are created in several areas, and guides are published on how best to build a dam located at the heart of this design. The lowlands, wetlands are dammed and flooded in Maine by the end of the century to meet the demand for spikes, while the existing mills in Wisconsin are ideal for harvesting commercial ice. In Alaska, a vast and shallow artificial lake of about 40 hectares (16 acres) is produced to assist in the production of ice and harvest; a similar approach was conducted in the Aleut Islands; in Norway it is taken further, with a number of artificial lakes up to half a mile long built on farmland to increase supply, including some built into the sea to collect fresh water for ice.
Ice cuts involve several stages and are usually done at night, when the ice is the thickest. First the surface will be cleared from the snow with the scrapers, the depth of the ice is tested for conformity, then the surface will be marked with the cutter to produce a beam ice line in the future. The size of the blocks varies according to destination, the largest being for the furthest location, the smallest destined for the east coast of America itself and only 22 cm (0.56 m) square. The blocks could eventually be cut from the ice and drift to the shore. The speed of operation may depend on the possibility of warmer weather affecting the ice. Both in New England and Norway, the harvest takes place during the quiet season, providing valuable local work.
The process requires a variety of equipment. Some of these are protective equipment to allow the workforce and horses to operate safely on ice, including cork boots for men and thorny horse shoe. At the beginning of the 19th century ad hoc only, improvisational tools such as axes and chisels were used for the remainder of the harvest, but in the 1840s Wyeth introduced new designs to allow for larger scale, more commercial harvesting processes. These include horse-drawn ice cutters, resembling plows with two parallel cutters to help mark ice quickly and uniformly, and then horse plow with teeth to assist in the cutting process itself, replacing the whipsaws. In the 1850s, specialist ice tool manufacturers produced catalogs and sold products along the east coast. There was a discussion of the desire to cut circular saws for much of the 19th century, but it proved impractical to give them horses and they were not introduced to the ice harvest until the early 20th century, when gasoline engines were available.
Warm winters can paralyze the ice harvest, however, either do not produce ice at all, or thin ice that forms smaller blocks or that can not be harvested safely. This winter is called "open winter" in North America, and can lead to a deficiency of ice, called ice famine. The famous ice disasters in the US include those that occurred in 1880 and 1890, while the winter of 1898 in Norway resulted in England having to seek additional supplies from Finland. Over time, ice famines promote investment in crop ice production, which ultimately destroys the ice trade.
Legality
At the beginning of the ice trade, there were few restrictions on harvesting ice in the US, as it traditionally has a small value and is seen as a free item. As the trade grows, ice becomes valuable and the right to cut ice becomes important. By law, different rules are held to apply to navigable water ways, in which the right to harvest the first belonging to claim a stake, and "public" water areas such as rivers or lakes, where ice is considered to belong to the owner neighboring land.
Many lakes have several landowners, however, and after a dispute over the Fresh Pond, lawyer Simon Greenleaf is charged with adjudicating a solution in 1841. Greenleaf decides that the right to harvest the ice will be shared proportionally with the number of coastlines. owned by different claimants; from that moment onwards, the right to harvest the ice can be bought and sold and the value of land adjacent to sites like Fresh Pond is increasing rapidly, with one owner purchasing a land of $ 130 ($ 2,500 in 2010 terms) acre (0 , 4 hectares) in the 1820s turned down a $ 2,000 ($ 44,000) one acre bid in the 1850s.
This judgment does not eliminate potential disputes, as ice can drift along the river, generating arguments over the ownership of the displaced ice. In some countries it is illegal to damage the ice that has not been cut by other businessmen, but the argument can still be evil. In the winter of 1900-01, for example, a dispute between Pike and the North Lake Company and its rival Ice Lake Wisconsin and Cartage Company over the right to harvest the ice resulted in a fierce battle between workers and the deployment of ice-steamers to destroy competing supplies.
Transportation
Natural ice usually has to be moved several times between harvested and used by the end consumer. Various methods are used, including carts, trains, boats and barges. Ships are essential for ice trading, especially in the early phase of trade, when the trade focus is on international exports from the US and railroad networks across the country do not exist.
Ordinarily, ice merchants hire ships to deliver ice as goods, though Frederic Tudor initially bought his own ship and the Tudor Company then bought three of its own fast cargo ships in 1877. Ice was first transported by ship at the end of the 18th century, sometimes used as a weight. Shipping ice as a ballast, however, required it to be neatly cut to prevent it from melting, which was not easily done until the discovery of ice by Wyeth in 1825. The uniform block produced by the Wyeth process also made it possible to pack more ice into the confined space from a steering grip, and significantly reduce the losses due to melting. Ice is usually packed tightly with sawdust, and the handle is then closed to prevent warm air from entering; Other forms of protective dunnage used to protect ice include straw and pine tree pieces. The requirements for this large sawdust coincided with the growth of the New England wood industry in the 1830s; sawdust has no other use at the time, and is in fact perceived as a problem, so its use in ice trading has proven to be very useful for the local wood industry.
Ships carrying ice must be very strong and there are premiums placed to recruit a good crew, capable of moving cargo quickly to its location before it melts. At the end of the 19th century, the preferred option was a wood-hulled ship, to avoid corrosion of rust from melting ice, while a windmill pump was installed to remove excess water from the stomach using a hull pump. Cargo ice tends to cause long-term ship destruction, since the constant ice melt and the water and the resulting steam lead to dry decay. Shipping size varies; depending on ports and routes. The US ship at the end of the 19th century was a schooner, carrying about 600 tons (500,000 kg) of ice; large shipments from Norway to the UK may cover up to 900 tonnes (800,000 kg).
It is important to keep track of the amount of ice loaded onto ships for commercial and safety reasons, so that each block of ice is weighed before they go to the ship, and the total weight calculation of the ice is recorded. Initially a rough loading method involving ice tongs and whips was used to lower the separate ice blocks into the hold, but a better method developed in the 1870s involving lever platforms, was replaced by a reciprocal platform device in 1890. The ships loaded quickly to prevent the ice from melting and, in US ports, the average cargo can be loaded in just two days. Freight costs are paid on the basis of intake, or departure, the weight of the load, and the conditions set at the ice handling along the route.
Barges are also used to transport ice, especially along the Hudson River, sometimes also functioning as storage units. These barges can carry between 400 and 800 tons (400,000 to 800,000 kg) of ice and, like ice carrying boats, windmills are usually installed to power a barge hull pump. Barges are believed to help preserve ice from melting, because the ice is kept under the deck and isolated by the river. Charlie Morse introduced a larger ice barge in the 1890s to supply New York; this is drawn by the schooner and each can carry up to 3,000 tonnes (three million kg) of ice.
For much of the 19th century, it was very cheap to haul ice from New England and other key ice-cream centers, helping to grow the industry. The role of the region as a gateway to trade with the inside of the United States means that merchant ships carry more cargo to the port than there is a cargo to take back; unless they can find the cargo back, the ship will need to carry the stone as a ballast instead. Ice is the only viable alternative to rocks and, consequently, the ice trade from New England can negotiate lower shipping rates than is possible from other international locations. Later in this century, the ice trade between Maine and New York took advantage of the requirements that emerged from Maine to Philadelphia coal: ice ships carrying ice from Maine would bring back fuel, leading to a trade called "ice and coaling" business.
Ice was also transported by train from 1841 onwards, the first use of engineering was on the path established between Fresh Pond and Charleston by the Charlestown Branch Railroad Company. Special rail cars are built to protect ice and equipment designed to allow the car to load. In 1842, a new train to Fitchburg was used to access the ice at Walden Pond. Ice is not a cargo that is popular with train employees, however, because it must be moved immediately to avoid liquefaction and generally awkward to transport. In the 1880s ice was being sent by train across the continent of North America.
The final part of the supply chain for domestic and small commercial customers involves shipping ice, usually using an ice train. In the US, ice is cut into blocks 25, 50, and 100 pounds (11, 23 and 45 kg) and then distributed by horse-drawn ice carts. Iceman, driving the train, then sending ice to the household, using ice tongs to hold the cube. Delivery can occur either daily or twice daily. In the 1870s, specialist distributors were in big cities, with local fuel dealers or other businesses selling and shipping ice in smaller communities. In the UK, ice is rarely sold to domestic customers through special dealers during the 19th century, usually sold through fish vendors, butchers and chemists, who store ice in their premises for their own commercial use.
Storage
Ice should be stored at some point between the harvest and its last use by the customer. One method to do this is the construction of ice houses to store products, usually not long after the ice is first harvested or in a regional depot after being sent out. The initial ice house was relatively small, but then the storage facility was a large warehouse size and contained a much larger amount of ice.
Thermodynamic understanding was limited in the early nineteenth century, when it was believed that the key to successful storage into ice was the construction of underground ice houses, where it was believed, incorrectly, that it would always be cool enough to store ice successfully. European ice houses are based on this theory, and use basements, often built at great expense, to save the winter harvest. Some farmers in Virginia, however, have built ice houses that are much cheaper, elevated from the ground, built of wood and isolated with straw. In addition to the ice temperature, there is also the need to efficiently drain the melted water, as this water will melt the remaining ice much faster than warm air.
Tudor investigated various ice houses in 1805 and concluded that they could be built on the ground as well. The first ice house in Cuba has wooden walls inside and out, insulated with peat and sawdust, with some form of ventilation system, and this forms the basic design for ice houses for the rest of the century. In 1819, however, Tudor also built an ice house of brick, capable of holding more than 200 tons (200,000 kg) of ice, using charcoal inside the walls for isolation. In the 1840s, Barn sheds up to 36,000 square feet (3,300 square meters), built of bricks to avoid the risk of fire from new railways. However, the ice house remains highly flammable, and many are burned, including the first ice house in Sydney that was completely destroyed in 1862.
The size of the ice house makes it difficult to load ice into it; in 1827, Wyeth invented the horse-drawn lever and system to lift ice blocks through the roof of the warehouse. Then the loading increase includes the use of an elevator system to raise the ice blocks to the top of the building, first using horsepower, then steam power; The largest warehouse then introduces a conveyor belt system to bring ice to storage. The power plant containing the support equipment is built next to the ice house, and care is taken to avoid the risk of fire from this machine. The warehouse is usually painted white or yellow to reflect the sun during the summer. A typical Hudson River warehouse may have a length of 400 feet (120 m), a depth of 100 feet (30 m) and a three-story high, capable of holding 50,000 tonnes (four million kg) of ice. The railroad houses can then accommodate up to 250,000 tons (220 million kg) each.
In contrast, initially the Norwegian ice trade was conducted without a house of ice, taking ice directly from the lake to the ship for transport during winter and spring; between the 1850s and 1870s, however, many ice houses were built, allowing exports to last for the rest of the year as well.
Ice houses are also built in big cities that consume ice to retain imported ice before final sales and consumption, where they are often called depots. In London, the early ice depots were often circular and called wells or shades; The New Cow's Market depot built in 1871 is 42 feet (13 m) wide and 72 feet (22 m) deep, capable of holding 3,000 short tons (three million kg) of ice. Then the ice depots at Shadwell and Kings Cross in London are still bigger, and, along with the barge that goes in, are used to store Norwegian ice. New York City is unusual and does not build an ice depot near the harbor, instead of using a barge that enters and, sometimes, a ship that sends ice as a floating shed until ice is needed.
In order for domestic or commercial customers to use ice, however, it is usually necessary to be able to keep it for a period of time away from the ice house. As a result, ice boxes and domestic refrigerators are a critical step in the storage process: without which many households can not use and consume ice. In 1816, Tudor sold a Boston refrigerator called "Little Ice Houses" to households in Charleston; It is made of wood, coated with iron and designed to hold three pounds (1.4 kg) of ice. Household refrigerators were produced in the 1840s on the east coast, mainly by Darius Eddy of Massachusetts and Winship of Boston; many of them were sent to the west. The extent to which natural ice was adopted by local people in the 19th century greatly depends on the availability and retrieval of ice boxes.
Apps
Consumption
Ice trade allowed the consumption of new products during the 19th century. One simple use for natural ice is to cool the drink, either directly added to a glass or barrel, or indirectly cool it in a wine cooler or similar container. Ice drinks are a novelty and were initially seen with attention by customers, worried about health risks, though this quickly disappeared in the US. By the mid-19th century, water was always cold in America if possible. Ice milk is also popular, and German beer, traditionally cooked cold, also used ice. Drinks like sherry-cobbler and mint juleps are created which can only be made by using crushed ice. There is a clear distinction in 19th century American and European attitudes to add ice directly to the drink, with Europeans taking this as an unpleasant habit; British visitors to India were surprised to see the Anglo-Indian elite preparing to drink ice water. Some Hindus in India consider ice to be unclean for religious reasons, and as inappropriate food.
Large-scale ice cream production is also produced from the ice trade. Ice cream has been produced in small quantities since at least the 17th century, but it relies on the large amount of ice available, and a huge amount of labor to make it. This is because using ice to freeze ice cream depends both on the application of salt to the ice mix to produce a cooling effect, and also constantly agitating the mixture to produce light texture associated with ice cream. In the 1820s and 1830s, the availability of ice in the US east coast cities meant that ice cream became increasingly popular, but still a product that was essentially luxurious. In 1843, the new ice cream maker patented by Nancy Johnson that required far less effort and physical time; Similar designs are also produced in England and France. Combined with growing ice trading, ice cream becomes much more widely available and consumed in larger quantities. In England, Norwegian ice is used by the growing Italian community in London from the 1850s onwards to popularize ice cream with the general public.
Commercial apps
Ice trade is revolutionizing the way food is preserved and transported. Before the 19th century, preservation had depended on techniques such as curing or smoking, but the large supply of natural ice allowed food to be refrigerated or frozen instead. Although using ice to cool food is a relatively simple process, it requires considerable experimentation to produce an efficient and reliable method for controlling the flow of warm and cold air in various containers and transport systems. In the early stages of ice trading there is also a tension between preserving the limited supply of ice, by limiting the airflow above it, and preserving the food, which relies on more air circulation on the ice to create cooler temperatures.
The initial approach to preserving food uses traditional cold box variants to solve the problem of how to take a small amount of short-range products to market. Thomas Moore, an engineer from Maryland, invented the patented early refrigerator in 1803; this involves a large insulated wooden box, with a container of ice cans embedded on it. This refrigerator mainly relies on simple insulation, not ventilation, but its design is widely adopted by smallholders and traders, and illegal copies abound. In the 1830s portable casserole refrigerators were used in the meat trade, taking advantage of more ice supplies to use ventilation to keep food better. In the 1840s, increased supply and understanding of the importance of air circulation made a significant improvement to cooling in the US.
With the development of the US rail system, natural ice became used to transport larger quantities of far-off goods through the discovery of refrigerator cars. The first refrigerator cars appeared in the late 1850s and early 1860s, and were a crude construction that held up to 3,000 pounds (1,360 kg) of ice, above which the food was placed. It was quickly discovered that placing meat directly on a block of ice in a car caused it to perish; subsequent designs hang the meat from the hook, allowing the meat to breathe, while the swinging carcass increases circulation in the car. After the Civil War, J. B Sutherland, John Bate, and William Davis patented refurbished refrigerator cars, which used a pile of ice placed at both ends and improved air circulation to keep the contents cool. Improved ventilation is important to avoid the formation of warm air in the car and cause damage to the goods. Salt can be added to the ice to increase the cooling effect to produce a cold refrigerator car, which keeps the food better. For much of the nineteenth century, different gauges of railway lines made it difficult and time-consuming to move cold cargo between lines, which is a problem as ice continues to melt; In the 1860s, refrigerator cars with adjustable axles were being made to speed up the process.
Natural ice becomes important for the transport of perishable food through railroads; slaughter and meat meat, then transport it, much more efficiently in terms of transport costs and open industries in the Mid-West, while, as industrialist Jonathan Armor says, ice cars and refrigerators "alter the growth of berries and berries from gambling. to the national industry ".
Refrigerated ships are also made possible through ice trading, allowing perishable goods to be exported internationally, first from the US and then from countries like Argentina and Australia. The early ships had kept their cold stuff along with the main ice charge; the first vessel to transport cold meat to England, designed by Bate, adapted a train fridge car, using ice on both ends of the hold and ventilation fans to keep the meat cool. The upgraded version, created by James Craven, distributes saltwater solution through ice and then holds the hold to keep the meat cool, and creates a drier atmosphere in the hold, keeping the meat better. Natural ice is also used in the fishing industry to preserve the catch, initially in the eastern American fisheries. In 1858 the Grimsby fishing fleet began bringing ice into the sea with them to preserve their catch; this allows longer journeys and greater catches, and the fishing industry becomes the largest ice user in the UK.
Natural ice is used for many things. Ice trade allows its widespread use in the medical world in efforts to treat illness and relieve its symptoms, and make tropical hospitals more bearable. In Calcutta, for example, part of each ice shipment is specially stored in a town ice house for use by local doctors. In the mid-19th century, the Royal Navy used imported ice to cool the turret interior of their ship's guns. In 1864, and after several attempts, salmon eggs were eventually sent from England to Australia, using natural ice to keep them cool on the route, allowing the creation of the Tasmanian salmon industry.
See also
- List of ice companies
Note
References
Bibliography
- Armor, Jonathan Ogden (1906). The Packers, The Private Car Lines, and the People . Philadelphia, USA: H. Altemus. OCLCÃ, 566166885.
- Blain, Bodil Bjerkvik (February 2006). "Melting Markets: The Rise and Decline of the Anglo-Norwegian Ice Trade, 1850-1920" (PDF) . Working Papers from the Global Economic History Network. 20/06. London: London School of Economics. Source of the article : Wikipedia
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