What do a Florida doctor and a New York City police commissioner have in common? They are both part of the cool history of ice in America.
If you live in a warm climate, what was life like before ice?
Cold compresses were not cold enough to reduce fever or pain. Food was salted or canned for preservation, but food poisoning would have been common. And refreshing beverages were served at room temperature. Of course, cold climates had ice, but only the wealthy had access to ice year-round. The world history of ice is too big for one book, so journalist and historian Amy Brady focuses on 200 years of ice in the United States. By the first half of the 19th century, ice harvesting had become a big business in America. While the throughline in Ice is the American ice trade, I was most struck by other stories in the book. Stories that demonstrate a different type of American ingenuity.
The Florida Doctor
The Florida Doctor.
In 1833, Dr. John Gorrie arrived in Apalachicola, Florida, a small town on the Gulf of Mexico. He set up a medical practice and supplemented his income as the postmaster and notary public.
When yellow fever swept through the town in 1841, Dr. Gorrie was determined to provide comfort for his patients. Drawing on his college courses in thermodynamics, Gorrie hoped to get physics to work in his favor. To cool his infirmary, Dr. Gorrie drilled a hole in a metal pan, filled it with ice, and hung the pan from the ceiling. As air flowed over the ice, the room began to feel cooler. Because this cooling method required ice and supplies were limited in 1840s Florida, Dr. Gorrie had to find a way to make ice himself. But the ice merchants in the Northeast did not take this mechanical threat lightly and found a way to thwart the good doctor. In the New York Globe, one writer complained of a “crank” down in Florida who “thinks he can make ice by his machine as good as God Almighty.” “At the time, and especially in small towns, ice was considered to be God’s creation – not the province of man.” With funding from a Boston investor, Dr. Gorrie became the first person to create a commercially available refrigeration machine. In 1851, Gorrie received a U.S. patent on his ice machine, but that same year, his chief financial backer had died. Gorrie wrote: “moral causes...have been brought into play to prevent the machine’s use.” Without funds, Gorrie returned to Apalachicola, where he awaited word on a patent for his other innovation: the air conditioning process. The New York City Police Commissioner 
The New York City Police Commissioner.
By 1890, New York City was consuming more than 285 million tons of ice per year, more than anywhere else in the United States.
Charles W. Morse was a Maine businessman who made his fortune in shipbuilding before moving into the ice trade. Morse bought up ice companies in New York City until he owned half the natural ice market. Then, he raised prices by 100 percent. Ice became too expensive for the poor who could no longer afford to preserve food or keep cool. The New York World warned: “Unless something is done in the matter, there will be widespread suffering among the poor people and a higher death rate than ever among the sick babies of the tenements during the hot weather.” In August 1896, the temperature reached nearly 120 degrees inside the brick tenements on the Lower East Side. Not even the state governor sent help. “It is not the province of the government to support the people,” he scoffed at a press meeting. During the 10-day heatwave, 1,300 New Yorkers had died. Many more would have died, if not for the New York City police commissioner who took action while the mayor and governor did nothing. The commissioner ordered hundreds of truckloads of ice – natural and mechanical – to be delivered to the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Dozens of icemen and the commissioner himself unloaded the ice and carried it into the tenements. The New York City police commissioner was Theodore Roosevelt, and just five years later, he would become president of the United States at the age of 42. A Cool History With vignettes like these from the lives of the famous and the obscure, Ice offers an intriguing tour through the history of food, commerce, medicine, and sports. Whether you’re drinking a glass of ice water or watching a Zamboni smooth the surface of an ice rink, you may never look at ice the same way again. See more Books to Read: The Reader on the 6.27 No Time to Spare Read This for Inspiration Vivian Maier Developed Once Upon a Tome Enjoyed this post? Follow us on Instagram and Facebook Get a new post each month. 
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