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Friday, April 10, 2015

The Icebox



Growing up on the farm, this is what we called the refrigerator.  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps this comes from older times when people really did use iceboxes for keeping things cold before the invention of the refrigerator. 



 Root cellar
 
Before even the icebox, people stored food in underground cellars.  Iceboxes were invented just before the nineteenth century.  People would purchase huge blocks of ice and put them in wooden boxes equipped with drip pans for the melting ice.  Anything that needed to be kept cool was placed in the box and the ice replaced periodically.




There was an old, red brick icehouse in the small town near the farm when we were all growing up.  Daddy used to get ice from there occasionally.  They sold it in huge square blocks (similar to ice cubes but a hundred times bigger.)  Large silver colored picks were used to hoist the ice from the icehouse to the waiting transport.

German engineer Carl von Linde developed the first refrigerator in 1876.  By 1920, over 200 companies were producing refrigerators, but due to the cost, most people continued to use the icebox.  Freon was invented to cool and freeze foods.  This was effective but caused the release of chlorofluorocarbons into the environment.  In the 1980s, Freon was discontinued.




Did you have a refrigerator or an icebox growing up? 

When we moved into the sharecropper’s shacks when I was about six, we had a small rounded fridge, similar to a Philco, and it could have been that brand.  Kids don’t really pay attention to things like brand names.  We had too much playing to do.  The whole time I was growing up we all called the refrigerator the icebox.  I think people in the south still use this term today.

9 comments:

  1. That is one neat root cellar. I would like to have something like that to store all my vegetables in. That is one reason why I don't grow potatoes. I have nowhere to store them during winter where they won't freeze or worse yet, rot.
    We always called it a fridge.
    Neat post for I
    Bushman
    2015 A to Z Challenge Ambassador
    @jwb81074

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is one neat root cellar. I would like to have something like that to store all my vegetables in. That is one reason why I don't grow potatoes. I have nowhere to store them during winter where they won't freeze or worse yet, rot.
    We always called it a fridge.
    Neat post for I
    Bushman
    2015 A to Z Challenge Ambassador
    @jwb81074

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Jeff,

      Thanks for reading. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yes, potatoes are tricky to store.

      Sunni

      Delete
  3. I've heard people refer to it as an "icebox" over the years, but I never really knew why until now. I assumed it was because the freezer was attached to it and the freezer held ice! We always just called it the "fridge" or refrigerator.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I guess when you grow up in the south you use different words for some things. Thanks for reading.

      Sunni

      Delete
  4. We had a couple of those little refrigerators with the rounded corners. One was a Coldspot, the other a General Electric. Tiny freezer compartment, I remember, barely big enough to fit the ice trays. Had to be defrosted every week. The old days...

    John Holton
    Blogging from A to Z 2015 Cohost
    The Sound of One Hand Typing

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. John,

      Those were the old days, weren't they? Things have changed considerably since then.

      Thanks for reading.

      Sunni

      Delete
  5. As a youngster, we called our refrigerator "Icebox". Have no clue why.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lisa,

      Thanks for reading and leaving a comment. I think the term icebox was used in some parts of the country quite a while after refrigerators were invented. This comes from the time before the refrigerator when actual blocks of ice were stored to keep things cold.

      Sunni

      Delete

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Sunni