{"product_id":"before-the-refrigerator-9781421424583","title":"Before the Refrigerator","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow increased access to icedecades before refrigerationtransformed American life.   During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Americans depended upon ice to stay cool and to keep their perishable foods fresh. Jonathan Rees tells the fascinating story of how people got ice before mechanical refrigeration came to the household. Drawing on newspapers, trade journals, and household advice books, Before the Refrigerator explains how Americans built a complex system to harvest, store, and transport ice to everyone who wanted it, even the very poor.   Rees traces the evolution of the natural ice industry from its mechanization in the 1880s through its gradual collapse, which started after World War I. Meatpackers began experimenting with ice refrigeration to ship their products as early as the 1860s. Starting around 1890, large, bulky ice machines the size of small houses appeared on the scene, becoming an important source for the American ice supply. As ice machines shrunk, m\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eBefore the Refrigerator: How We Used to Get Ice\u003c\/i\u003e, Jonathan Rees provides a rich and detailed history of how ice became an American staple . . . Rees does a masterful job illustrating how, in its rise and fall, the ice industry created many industry alliances and consumer habits that are still with us today. Ice has become a taken-for-granted feature of modern living. This book is the story of how that came to be.\u003cbr\u003e—Xaq Frohlich, Auburn University, \u003ci\u003eJournal of Southern History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[\u003ci\u003eBefore the Refrigerator\u003c\/i\u003e] is an in-depth portrayal of a once-indispensable, life-changing technology, the former existence of which is as unknown to most of us as that of the telegraph or canal is to today's undergraduates . . . Rees synthesizes considerable archival research and presents interpretations of importance to scholars . . . \u003ci\u003eBefore the Refrigerator\u003c\/i\u003e is as refreshing as ice water on a hot summer day.\u003cbr\u003e—Jeffrey L. Meikle, University of Texas at Austin, \u003ci\u003eJournal of American History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003ePreface\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e1. How to Harvest Ice\u003cbr\u003e2. How to Manufacture Ice\u003cbr\u003e3. How Ice (and the Perishable Food It Preserved) Made It to Consumers\u003cbr\u003e4. How Ice Changed the American Diet and American Life\u003cbr\u003e5. How Household Refrigerators Changed the Ice Market Forever\u003cbr\u003eConclusion\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eIndex\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Johns Hopkins University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49529535365463,"sku":"9781421424583","price":47.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781421424583.jpg?v=1731876000","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/before-the-refrigerator-9781421424583","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}