Ice cutting
Ice cutting is a winter task of collecting surface ice from lakes and rivers for storage in ice houses and use or sale as a cooling method. Rare today, it was common (see ice trade) before the era of widespread mechanical refrigeration and air conditioning technology.[1]
History
The work was done as a winter chore by many
Ice harvesting generally involved waiting until approximately a foot of ice had built up on the water surface in the winter. The ice would then be cut with either a
Ice cutting was a considerable export industry for northern countries in Scandinavia and North America during the 19th century. It started in the United States around 1800, and spread to Scandinavia around 1820, by which Norway by the mid century became a major exporter to England, Europe, the Mediterranean, and as far away as Kingdom of Kongo, Egypt and New York.[5] Coastal Telemark had 1,300 workers exporting 125,000 tons in 1895–96, while the Oslo Fjord was the main European export region with Nesodden municipality alone employing 1,000 men and exporting 95,000 tons in 1900, at a time when Norway's combined ice export at 500,000 tons stood as the world's largest.[6]
Domestic production and sales were the largest single market source for ice in America and Europe. From the 1850s onwards ice cutting took on large-scale industrial proportions in Germany with Berlin as a key market.[7] In the 1880s, New York City had over 1500 ice delivery wagons and Americans consumed over 5 million tons of ice annually.[8]
Ice Sculpture
Ice cutting is still in use today for ice and
See also
References
- ^ Inspection of Ice. Ice and Refrigeration Illustrated, Southern Ice Exchange. 1896. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
- ISBN 978-0-9607572-1-3
- ^ Bowen, John T (1928). "Harvesting and Storing Ice on the Farm". Farmer's Bulletin: 6–8. Retrieved 2014-05-25.
- ISBN 0-7712-1012-4.
- ^ Per G. Norseng, "The new Ice Age", Universitetsforlaget 2019.
- ^ Den siste istid. NRK, March 2012. Visited on August 16, 2020.
- ^ Ingo Heidbrink, " The Natural Ice Factory", Norwegian Maritime Museum, retrieved August 16, 2020.
- ^ O'Donnell, Edward T. (31 July 2005). "The Dawn of New York's Ice Age". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
- ^ AFP (13 November 2008). "Ice is money in China's coldest city". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 23 September 2012. Retrieved 26 December 2009.
External links
- The Ice Industry, from 1795 to 1895. One hundred years of American commerce, edited by Chauncey Mitchell Depew
- Maine Ice Industry, an annual report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State, by the Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics
- The Ice Crop: How to Harvest, Store, Ship and Use Ice (1893) in the Science History Institute Digital Collections
- Use Your Car for Ice-Cutting This Winter, Popular Science monthly, February 1919, page 34.
- KK.org Amish Homebuilt gas powered ice cutter to make ice for non-electric icebox
- blueflower.tripod.com Homebuilt gas powered ice cutter
- HMdb.org THE HISTORICAL MARKER DATABASE, Ice Harvesting
- winnipeg.ctv.ca Modern ice cutter in Manitoba.
- pudsandlosers.blogspot.com, Ice Palace 2 - Cutting Ice, Saturday, January 31, 2009