Ice Trade
Learn all about the history of the ice trade industry throughout the US and Northern Europe. Answer the question of how was ice made in the 1800s?
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The Ice Trade
The ice trade, also known as the frozen water trade, was a 19th century and early 20th century industry that answers ‘how was ice made in the 1800s?’. It was centred on the east coast of the United States and Norway and involved the harvesting, transport and sale of huge blocks of ice from lakes, and ponds. These gigantic blocks would then be sent around the world on ships, and trains.
How did we use ice throughout history?
The Ice Trade first started in New England in the 19th century, though it was the largest trade of ice that human’s ever engaged in, it was not the first time. Snow and ice has been collected and stored throughout the world, and throughout history. For example, in the Mediterranean and South America, ice would be collected from the slopes of the Alps or from the Andes and transported to cities nearby.
Pre-industrial times
In the many thousands of years before the industrial revolution, people still needed ways to keep their products, food and themselves cool. We know that as far back as the Bronze Age (roughly 1750 B.C.E) the Akkadian people of the Euphrates River built large ‘ice houses’ for storing ice that they collected from the snowy mountains. They recorded on stone tablets that this ice was used during the summer months to drink.
In Russia, ice was regularly collected from the Neva River during the winter and transported to Saint Petersburg. Many wealthy Europeans began to build their own ‘ice houses’ to gather ice from their local estate. This ice was used to make cold drinks in the summer for the wealthiest elites.
Industrial revolution
With the advent of machinery, mining, and industry in the 18th and 19th century, it was inevitable that someone would look to creating an industry out of ice.
The birth of the Industrial revolution in Britain meant that people all over the world could create products faster, and in larger quantities. Increased trade routes, thanks to the Golden Age of sailing two hundred years before, had created a perfect situation for wealthy businessmen to sell their products to customers around the globe.
Discover how the Industrial Revolution started and changed the world as we know it today with our The Birth of the Industrial Revolution Lesson Pack.
Opening up the trade
The ice trade began in earnest in 1806, with the efforts of a man named Frederic Tudor from New England. He saw that ice was a very expensive product, and only the wealthy could afford to buy it. Due to its rarity, most wealthy people wanted ice, and ice houses to show off their wealth.
Tudor’s plan was to export ice from New England to these wealthy people in the West Indies and Southern US states. At the time, he was treated by the business community as very eccentric, and possibly foolish for attempting such a plan.
Ice Trade is a success!
The first shipment took place in 1806 when Tudor transported a load of ice from his family estate to the Caribbean island of Martinique. Although the shipping was successful, the ice melted quickly due to a lack of local storage places.
Over time, Tudor began to build out a web of places to store his ice as he transported it around. He even included fruit and vegetables in his shipments, which were kept fresh by the ice.
By the early 1820s, Tudor was shipping around 2 million kg of ice from Boston each year. He even thought about harvesting ice from passing icebergs in the Atlantic Ocean, although luckily for the poor sailors, this idea did not prove practical.
Uh-oh, there is competition!
Over the next 30 years, Tudor, his business and those of many competitors started to grow. They began to ship ice out to San Francisco to meet the demands of the Gold Rush. By the 1840s, the Ice Trade (using ice from New England and Norway) was able to ship blocks of ice all over the US, through most of Europe, and even as far as Australia!
By the 1850s, the industry was making around $8 million dollars per year ($138 million dollars in today’s money). This meant that around two billion kg of ice was kept in storage at any one time.
The ice trade within the US, particularly ice transporters from New England, turned their eyes to the Western United States instead of internationally. They discovered that it was easier to transport the ice on trains than on ships. This meant there was much more competition in western states and much less competition in Europe.
European Ice Trade
By the 1870s, an ice trade developed within Europe. Hundreds of men were employed to cut ice from the glaciers of Grindelwald in Switzerland, and Paris began to import ice from all over Europe. Norway entered the trade and focused on exports to England, mostly from an area known as Lake Oppegard. This was helped by the extensive railway network in England, that made transporting the ice very easy.
At the peak of the trade, more than 90,000 people were employed by the ice trade across the US and in Europe, almost 900 million kg of ice were exported from Norway each year.
For a few more famous inventions, try out these Victorian Inventions Flashcards.
How was ice made in the 1800s?
In order for natural ice to reach customers in the 1800s, it had to be cut out of ponds, lakes, and rivers and transported to the customers. Shockingly, only 10% of the ice that was harvested ever made it to the customer, the rest simply melted en route.
Harvesting Ice
To harvest ice, people had to find areas that were cold enough in the winter to fully freeze ponds and rivers, not just on the surface but completely freeze. This made places like New England in America and Norway in Europe perfect locations.
Ice cutting was a dangerous and hard job. It involved cutting out blocks of ice, that were often over 2 metres long, by hand using saws, chisels, and axes. This job would also have to be done at night, when the ice was at its thickest and coldest.
It was not uncommon for people to be hurt when pulling out the ice, there was a huge risk of falling into the holes that had been created, especially in the dark. People were also regularly injured by the ice blocks falling or cracking the surrounding ice.
Transporting Ice
Once the ice was taken out of the ground, it had to be transported quickly. Every hour and day that passed by meant that the ice melted more and more. In the early days of the ice trade, Tudor used ships that he had bought, he filled them with sawdust and lay the ice on the sawdust. Due to the weight of the ice, ships had to be incredibly strong and also had to be prepared to avoid rusting from the contact with the ice water.
The transport of the ice required a long chain of different types of transport. It was usually taken from the river by horse-drawn carriage, and stored in an ice house. From there, it would be taken by another carriage to a barge in the city. These barges would sail down the rivers (if they could navigate the ice) and take the ice to either railway stations, to be transported across the US, or to docks where they loaded the ice onto huge ships.
Storing Ice
The earliest ice houses were very small, only large enough to hold a single block of ice. As the ice trade grew, these ice houses became large warehouses.
Unfortunately, during the 1800s, the understanding of thermodynamics and how heat transferred between two objects was very limited. They believed that storing ice underground would keep it cold enough to not melt, or at least slow the process.
Over the decades, various buildings, insulated with hay, straw, or sawdust were used. Eventually, people began to understand how to slow the melting process by surrounding the ice in an object that does not transfer heat well, and by removing any ‘melt water’.
How was ice used in the 1800s?
During the 1800s, ice was used for two primary purposes. For the wealthy, it was a status symbol. They were able to keep their drinks cool during the summer months by using ice that they stored on their property from the winter. This practice eventually filtered down into everyday life as the price of ice became lower and lower. The second purpose was for transporting food. Fruit, vegetables, fish and other meat from all over the world, could be shipped further without going rotten. At first, this food would have been priced very high, but eventually it became cheap enough for everyone to afford.
Another product also benefited from the ice trade, the first production of ice-cream! Using a mix of ice shavings, milk and fruit, businessmen in cities such as New York and Toronto created ice cream treats that they sold on the streets.
