In 1900 the average family purchased 2.5 tons of ice per year for the ice box at 30 cents/100 pounds. The price doubled to 60 cents/100 pounds in the same year after “The Ice King” Charles W. Morse, American Ice Company, established a monopoly in ice.
Blocks of ice were often kept in sawdust while being delivered by the iceman, and the frugal housekeeper wrapped the ice block in newspaper to prolong its life.[1]
6.25 gallons of water make a 50 pound block of ice.
The term “refrigerator” was coined by a Maryland engineer, Thomas Moore, in 1800. Moore’s device would now be called an “ice box” — a cedar tub, insulated with rabbit fur, filled with ice, surrounding a sheet metal container. Moore designed it as as a means for transporting butter from rural Maryland to Washington, DC. Its operating principle was the latent heat of fusion associated with melting ice.[2]
[1] Memories of Morse 1904-1979, “Charles Wyman Morse” by John Paul Heffernan, Brunswick Publishing Co., Brunswick, Maine. [2] Refrigerators, by Glenn Elert.
Michigan’s Colonial Michilimackinac on Mackinac Island is a preserved fur-trading village representing 1770s life. There is much to see, including demonstrations of open hearth cooking.
Navarre-Anderson Trading Post is another 1700s fur-trading post museum which contains the oldest surviving wooden residential building in Michigan — and an 1810 cookhouse!
It is always 1932 at Wellington Farm, USA in Michigan. The Summer Kitchen is equipped for the housekeeper of the Great Depression, and is a working kitchen for demonstrations and special events. A Grist Mill is nearby milling corn for cornmeal, barley for flour, or shelling corn.
While you’re in Michigan, visit the authentic logging cook shack at the Tahquamenon Logging Museum in Newberry.
In the early 1800s America had her own native spices and herbs, and merchants from Salem Massachusetts still traded for exotic spices from the far east.
Mid-1800s refrigeration in ships lessened the status and prices of the spice trade, but demand and competition was still keen.
1869: a spice mill was added to Hulman & Company’s [Clabber Girl] grocery store wholesale business.
1873: Tone Brothers, Inc. founded and still located in Des Moines, Iowa, today is perhaps second in volume to McCormick, and distributes Durkee Spices, Fleischmann’s Yeast, and Spice Islands products. Tone is also the leading supplier of spices to national warehouse club chains.[1]
1889: Willoughby M. McCormick founded McCormick Spices in Baltimore, working out of one room and a cellar. The initial products were sold door-to-door and included root beer, flavoring extracts, fruit syrups and juices. Seven years later, McCormick bought the F.G. Emmett Spice Company and entered the spice industry….
