Includes bibliographical references and index.

How to harvest ice -- How to manufacture ice -- How ice (and the perishable food it preserved) make it to consumers -- How ice changed the American diet and American life -- How household refrigerators changed the ice market forever.

"This book considers the details of the technologies that made ice production, storage, and transportation possible, how the technologies that made up this system improved over time, and the many effects of these improvements on the people that benefited from these changes. While increased access to ice may seem like a small change to anyone who can get all the ice they want, anytime they want, just by opening their freezer door, access to ice was a miracle to the ice industry's first customers. Understanding how that miracle happened demonstrates the interaction between technology and culture over time as well as how the many benefits that those changes brought to Americans affected people up and down the economic ladder"--