HarperCollins
The Frozen Water Trade
Key Metrics
- Gavin Weightman
- HarperCollins
- Paperback
- 9780007102860
- 7.99 X 5 X 0.61 inches
- 0.48 pounds
- Business & Economics > Economic History
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
The story of the 19th-century ice trade, in which ice from the lakes of New England - valued for its incredible purity - revolutionised domestic life around the world.
In the days before artificial refrigeration, it was thought impossible to transport ice for long distances. But one man, Frederic Tudor, was convinced it could be done. This is the story of how, almost single-handedly, and in the face of near-universal mockery, he established a vast industry that would introduce the benefits of fresh ice to large parts of the globe.
Thanks to Tudor, the American fashion for drinks 'on the rocks' spread to tropical areas such as the West Indies and British India. By the 1830s fleets of schooners carried the frozen cargo, packed with sawdust and tarpaulins for insulation, to all corners of the world. The harvesting of the ice from New England's lakes employed thousands of men.
The frozen water trade had a profound influence on the tastes of a large part of the world, but with the development of artificial cooling systems in the first quarter of the 20th century, the huge industry established by Frederic Tudor vanished as if it had never been.
Author Bio
At school I did not study history and my interest in the past was not excited until I took a degree in sociology at Bedford College, London University. It was an old-fashioned course which included a great deal of social and economic history which I had never come across in school. Our professor, the flamboyant Oliver McGregor was keen on agricultural history and harangued us about the iniquities of the enclosure of land and the importance of innovations in ploughing techniques.
It was at Bedford College ( which is long gone ) that I first began to study the industrial revolution, a huge subject that has fascinated me ever since. I had worked as a local journalist for five years before I went to university, by which time I was twenty-two. I went back into journalism writing features and leaders before joining New Society magazine (which is also long gone ) in 1974. In the four years I was there I wrote on a huge range of subjects, including the history of poaching in Britain and developed an interest in housing and many social issues. Read more..
Quite by chance I was invited to join London Weekend Television's Friday night current affairs show The London Programme as a reporter. I knew nothing at all about television at first but in time became a producer, then a producer-director and the author of many programmes which I also wrote and narrated. My background in social history was invaluable as I tackled the history of London in two series of The Making of Modern London. I had always had an interest in wildlife and I had the luck to be given the opportunity to make a series called City Safari and later Brave New Wilderness. With the London history series I had started writing books, along with Steve Humphries who worked with me as an associate producer. Steve is still making wonderful television programmes with his own company Testimony Films based in Bristol.
Source: gavin-weightman.co.uk
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