There's a neat little instructional book published in 1893:

        Hiles, Theron L.
      The ice crop: how to harvest, store, ship and use ice, a complete
practical treatise for ... all interested in ice houses, cold storage and
the handling or use of ice in any way, including many recipes for iced
dishes and beverages.
      New York: O. Judd Company

      This publisher has a whole series including how to grow hops and
another on cranberries. Neat little illustrations of the tools needed to cut
ice.



----- Original Message -----
From: "mperdue" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 10:03 PM
Subject: Re: Icehouses


> I'm working on an icehouse project (3rd or 4th iron-in-
> the-fire after my dissertation).
>
> I have collected some several hundred icehouse references --
> mostly primary sources and most from agricultural journals
> and bulletins -- and I'm slowy transcribing the documents into
> one large file.  I've just begun and I have about 45 pages of
> text. I also have a list of over 100 citations that I have yet
> to see (hard to find journals, little luck with ILL, etc).
>
> If anyone wants specifics about certain icehouse topics, I can
> see what there is, in the meantime I can make a few general
> observations about the contents.
>
> One of the most interesting, to me, is the above-ground vs
> pit discussions.  Super insulated above-ground icehouses
> show up in New England in the early 19th century and seem to
> have been popular in northern and north-midwestern states.  At
> least one southern (NC) farmer wrote in skeptical about above-
> ground icehouses working in his climate.
>
> Most of the buildings described were simple frame structures,
> typically with plank studs (for thick insulated walls) and board siding
inside and out.  In the first decade of the 20th
> century some farmers comment that sawdust insulation tends to
> rot the building and that an air space is equally effective,
> with sawdust on the inside of the building packed around the
> ice.
>
> There are many editorials and comments from farmers as to the
> relative ease of putting up ice and how 'now it no longer needs
> to be considered a luxury.'  But these comments easily span
> from 1845 to 1917.  This seems to indicate that icehouses were
> indeed something of a luxury and that many farmers (unless they
> were dairymen)cooled with dairies and springhouses well into
> the 20th century, probably until the era of rural
> electrification.  At least one farmer wrote that he stopped
> putting up ice because his church groups expected him to bring
> ice-cream at every social occasion and he felt that ice water
> was making his stomach weak (I also used to hear that as a kid).
>
> There are a few articles on making icehouse ice trays, large
> sheet metal boxes with sloping sides for use in regions where
> an ice pond was unavailable.  Another icehouse variant is the
> 'ice well refrigerator,' essentially a pit icehouse that was
> filled directly with water and allowed to freeze during winter (the usual
recommendation was a depth of 1 to 2 inches of water
> per day of below 15 degree F. weather) -- the ones I've read
> about were in North Dakota and Wisconsin.
>
> The majority of these letters and articles are from the first
> two decades of the 20th century and, so far, most are from IL, IN, WI, and
Iowa (if memory serves).  Where the information
> exists I can search by state if you wish to see descriptions
> of nearby icehouses.
>
>
> Marty Perdue
> (doctoral candidate in architectural history, Univ. Va)
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>
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