page_title: Ice trade
section_title: Globalization, 1830–50
hierarchical_section_title: Ice trade / History / Globalization, 1830–50
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the world in a Winkel tripel projection centered on the Prime Meridian. Scale&#160;: 1:5,000,000 Français&#160;: Carte du monde suivant une projection Winkel tripel centrée sur le méridien de Greenwich. Échelle&#160;: 1:5&#160;000&#160;000. WGS84 datum, central meridian&#160;: 0°. Additional data representing the Ice Trade in 1856, drawn from Dickason, David G. (1991). "The Nineteenth-Century Indo-American Ice Trade: An Hyperborean Epic". Modern Asian Studies 25 (1), p.58
context_page_description: The ice trade, also known as the frozen water trade, was a 19th-century and early-20th-century industry, centring on the east coast of the United States and Norway, involving the large-scale harvesting, transport and sale of natural ice, and later the making and sale of artificial ice, for domestic consumption and commercial purposes. Ice was cut from the surface of ponds and streams, then stored in ice houses, before being sent on by ship, barge or railroad to its final destination around the world. Networks of ice wagons were typically used to distribute the product to the final domestic and smaller commercial customers. The ice trade revolutionised the U.S. meat, vegetable and fruit industries, enabled significant growth in the fishing industry, and encouraged the introduction of a range of new drinks and foods.
  The trade was started by the New England businessman Frederic Tudor in 1806. Tudor shipped ice to the Caribbean island of Martinique, hoping to sell it to wealthy members of the European elite there, using an ice house he had built specially for the purpose.
context_section_description: The trade in New England ice expanded during the 1830s and 1840s across the eastern coast of the U.S., while new trade routes were created across the world. The first and most profitable of these new routes was to India: in 1833 Tudor combined with the businessmen Samuel Austin and William Rogers to attempt to export ice to Calcutta using the brigantine ship the Tuscany. The Anglo-Indian elite, concerned about the effects of the summer heat, quickly agreed to exempt the imports from the usual East India Company regulations and trade tariffs, and the initial net shipment of around a hundred tons (90,000 kg) sold successfully. With the ice fetching for three pence (£0.80 in 2010 terms) per pound (0.45 kg), the first shipment aboard the Tuscany produced profits of $9,900 ($253,000), and in 1835 Tudor commenced regular exports to Calcutta, Madras and Bombay.
  Tudor's competitors soon entered the market as well, shipping ice by sea to both Calcutta and Bombay, further increasing demand there and driving out most of the indigenous ice dealers. A grand ice house was built from stone in Calcutta by the local British community to store the ice imports. Small shipments of chilled fruit and dairy products began to be sent out with the ice, achieving high prices. Attempts were made by Italian traders to introduce ice from the Alps into Calcutta, but Tudor repeated his monopolistic techniques from the Caribbean, driving them and many others out of the market. Calcutta remained a particularly profitable market for ice for many years; Tudor alone made more than $220,000 ($4,700,000) in profits between 1833 and 1850.
  Other new markets were to follow. In 1834 Tudor sent shipments of ice to Brazil along with chilled apples, beginning the ice trade with Rio de Janeiro. These ships typically returned to North America carrying cargos of sugar, fruit and, later, cotton. Ice from traders in New England reached Sydney, Australia, in 1839, initially selling at three pence (£0.70) per pound (0.5 kg), later rising to six pence (£1.40). This trade was to prove less regular, and the next shipments arrived in the 1840s. The export of chilled vegetables, fish, butter and eggs to the Caribbean and to markets in the Pacific grew during the 1840s, with as many as 35 barrels being transported on a single ship, alongside a cargo of ice. Shipments of New England ice were sent as far as Hong Kong, South-East Asia, the Philippines, the Persian Gulf, New Zealand, Argentina and Peru.
  New England businessmen also tried to establish a market for ice in England during the 1840s. An abortive first attempt to export ice to England had occurred in 1822 under William Leftwich; he had imported ice from Norway, but his cargo had melted before reaching London. Fresh attempts were made by Jacob Hittinger who owned supplies at Fresh Pond, and Eric Landor, with assets at Wenham Lake, in 1842 and 1844 respectively. Of the two, Landor's venture was more successful and he formed the Wenham Lake Ice Company to export to Britain, building an ice depot on the Strand. Wenham ice was marketed as being unusually pure, possessed of special cooling properties, successfully convincing British customers to avoid local British ice, which was condemned as polluted and unhealthy. After some initial success, the venture eventually failed, in part because the English chose not to adopt chilled drinks in the same way as North Americans, but also because of the long distances involved in the trade and the consequent costs of ice wastage through melting. Nonetheless, the trade allowed for some refrigerated goods to arrive in England from America along with ice cargos during the 1840s.
  The east coast of the U.S. also began to consume more ice, particularly as more industrial and private customers found uses for refrigeration. Ice became increasingly used in the northeast of the U.S. to preserve dairy products and fresh fruit for market, the chilled goods being transported over the growing railroad lines. By the 1840s, ice was being used to transfer small quantities of goods further west across th
caption: The growth of the New England ice trade by 1856; star indicates New England
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