The Frozen Water Trade: A True Story - Softcover

Weightman, Gavin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786886404 ISBN 13: 9780786886401

Publisher: Hachette Books, 2004

Synopsis

Now in paperback, the fascinating story of America's vast natural ice trade which revolutionized the 19th century

On February 13, 1806, the brig Favorite left Boston harbor bound for the Caribbean island of Martinique with a cargo that few imagined would survive the month-long voyage. Packed in hay in the hold were large chunks of ice cut from a frozen Massachusetts lake. This was the first venture of a young Boston entrepreneur, Frederic Tudor, who believed he could make a fortune selling ice to people in the tropics.

Ridiculed at the outset, Tudor endured years of hardship before he was to fulfill his dream. Over the years, he and his rivals extended the frozen-water trade to Havana, Charleston, New Orleans, London, and finally to Calcutta, where in 1833 more than one hundred tons of ice survived a four-month journey of 16,000 miles with two crossings of the equator. The Frozen Water Trade is a fascinating account of the birth of an industry that ultimately revolutionized domestic life for millions of people.

About this title

About the Author:

Gavin Weightman is a journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker. He lives in London, England, with his partner, Clare Beaton, an illustrator of children's books; their son, Tom; and her older children, Jack and Kate.

From Publishers Weekly:

Weightman, a London journalist and documentary filmmaker, uncovers a secret history and ends up transforming a dull-sounding topic into a riveting read. He introduces turn-of-the-19th-century Bostonian Frederic Tudor as an indefatigable American dreamer who sought to give people something they didn't know they wanted-and make a killing while he's at it. Tudor hatches scheme after scheme to "farm" ice from New England ponds and deliver chunks of the brand-new commodity to the Caribbean, and ultimately to India and elsewhere, so that items like cold beverages and ice cream become cultural staples. Along the way Tudor encounters disbelievers, creditors, rivals, imprisonment, yellow fever, warm weather, political scuffles-even pirates. Weightman also delves engagingly into the science of freezing and the particulars and economics of ice transport and storage. Through it all, Weightman juggles the players in the burgeoning but finally ephemeral business while he spins a tale of a pre-refrigerated world. Issues of commerce and entrepreneurship in an infant nation are revealed in this page-turner, which gets its title from the name of the industry. When Weightman visits Tudor's original ice source, locals think the author is loony for suggesting that cubes from the pond cooled people in Calcutta two centuries earlier-and made one man (and perhaps many others) rich in the process. Weightman takes a relatively unknown part of history (and the figure at its center), and creates a funny, rollicking human adventure.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hachette Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0786886404
• ISBN 13: 9780786886401
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 274