Icebox

history · kitchen · ice · invention

Blocks of ice. People would buy huge chunks of ice from ice delivery men who brought them to homes every few days. The ice would slowly melt inside the insulated cabinet, keeping food cold the whole time.

Essential kitchen helper. Every kitchen in the early 1900s had an icebox because it was the only practical way to store milk, meat, and other perishable foods without them spoiling.

Simple but clever design. Iceboxes were just wooden or metal cabinets with thick insulation and a drip pan at the bottom to catch water from the melting ice.

Replaced by refrigerators. When electric refrigerators became common and safe in the 1920s and 1930s, iceboxes gradually disappeared because they were messy, needed constant ice deliveries, and didn't work as well.