Hachette Books
The Frozen Water Trade: A True Story
Key Metrics
- Gavin Weightman
- Hachette Books
- Paperback
- 9780786886401
- 7.95 X 5.26 X 0.72 inches
- 0.65 pounds
- Business & Economics > Economic History
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
On February 13, 1806, the brig Favorite left Boston harbor bound for the Caribbean island of Martinique with a cargo that few imagined would survive the month-long voyage. Packed in hay in the hold were large chunks of ice cut from a frozen Massachusetts lake. This was the first venture of a young Boston entrepreneur, Frederic Tudor, who believed he could make a fortune selling ice to people in the tropics.
Ridiculed at the outset, Tudor endured years of hardship before he was to fulfill his dream. Over the years, he and his rivals extended the frozen-water trade to Havana, Charleston, New Orleans, London, and finally to Calcutta, where in 1833 more than one hundred tons of ice survived a four-month journey of 16,000 miles with two crossings of the equator. The Frozen Water Trade is a fascinating account of the birth of an industry that ultimately revolutionized domestic life for millions of people.
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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