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The Frozen-Water Trade: A True Story | 
 enlarge | Author: Gavin Weightman
Publisher: Hyperion
Category: Book
List Price: $23.45
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Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 662028
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.9 x 1
ISBN: 078686740X
Dewey Decimal Number: 380.1427
EAN: 9780786867400
ASIN: 078686740X
Publication Date: January 8, 2003
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Product Description
n 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 sea voyage. Packed in hay in the hold were large chunks of ice harvested from a frozen Massachusetts lake. This was the first venture of a young Boston merchant, Frederic Tudor, who imagined he could make a fortune selling ice to tropical countries. Ridiculed from the outset by fellow merchants, Tudor endured years of hardship before he was to fulfill his dream. Over 30 years, he and his rivals extended the 'frozen water trade' to Cuba, Charleston, New Orleans, New York, and London, and finally to Calcutta, when in 1833 more than one hundred tons of ice survived a four-month voyage of 16,000 miles with two crossings of the Equator. Tudor not only made a fortune, he founded a huge industry, which each winter employed thousands of men and horses to harvest millions of tons of ice. Thanks to his astonishing enterprise, iced drinks, chilled beer, and homemade ice cream became essential to the American way of life, and cooled the brows of communities throughout the world long before artificial refrigeration-after which the frozen-water trade melted away. In this fascinating book, Gavin Weightman reveals the forgotten story of America's vast natural ice trade, which revolutionized domestic life for millions of people.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 Adaptation and Creation May 5, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Modern life has so many luxuries that we tend to notice them by their absence not by their presence. Comfortable fabrics, ease of transportation, computer scheduling, mass communication and onwards have at times created the assumption that the masses demand a product, and the smart classes get together, solve the problem and within a few years industry and society are aided and life moves on. What is often given less attention is the creation of a new want, where it did not previously exist, nor was there any expectation that if the problem were not solved, no one particularly notice. Such is the case with consumer ice. Yes, ice in drinks, ice in environment cooling, ice in food preservation and comfort.
The story that Weightman, a British author and filmmaker, tells is even more remarkable considering that when ice was first sold as a commodity, the early 19th century, was in an age when technology did not yet exist to create man made ice in any location. In other words, it took entrepreneurs with ideas and skill, to cut, ship and sell ice from cold locations to warm locations, while preventing the obvious melting.
Anyone whose work requires of them anything more than non-linear, A to B thinking would find this book useful. For when Frederic Tudor, a frequently failed Massachusetts businessman, decided that he could perfect and manage the shipment of river and lake ice to the Caribbean in 1806, he began one of the first technological and marketing success stories of the early American Republic and the Industrial Revolution.
Of course the use of ice for consumer use was nothing new, but the scale of the enterprise that the Tudor created in early America far surpassed anything in world history before, and it was such a success that no one really remembers it today. The basics of creating and adapting new strategies for seemingly new problems, with rapid rates of success / failure observation are all told in their excruciating history for the Tudor saga.
Within a few decades, thousands were employed, lives were change and fortunes were made in ways that resemble the growth of the information technology industry. If someone today sees an image of an New England worker, hacking away at the ice; the thought is you are viewing a bucolic, quaint image. Instead, the viewer is seeing innovation and a diffused hierarchy of adaptation all with the expressed purpose of taking American winter ice to the tropics and even to Europe. Weightman even explains why some markets are closed with the failure to market commercial ice to the British Isles.
The eventual collapse of the ice trade came about as quickly as it sprang up, because of further innovation in creating artificial ice machines, perfected by later New Englanders. The reader can expect a fascinating story about seemingly mundane events over nearly a hundred years that involves business, marketing, adaptation, personal failure and commercial luxury of the most common natural element, water, in this case its frozen form.
 Recommended for businessmen August 11, 2005
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The title of this book refers to the international trade set up by Bostonian Frederick Tudor during the 1800s. Mr. Tudor came up with the idea that winter ice harvested from the various waterways in his home state could be transported to hotter climates (Cuba, India, etc..) and sold for a profit. He spent the better part of his life turning his idea into reality such that by the time he died he was wealthy, and the frozen water trade was an international business involving thousands of workers and dozens of companies. This book tells the story of the man and his idea and covers:
1. The scientific and technical challenges Mr. Tudo encountered in his endeavor, such as keeping ice refrigerated for long durations, transporting ice over long distances, and separating good clean ice from dirty ice.
2. The business challenges of starting up and running the trade. This included incredulous doubters, copycats, fair-weather collegeaus, moneylenders who could not fathom the various difficulties he encountered, and potential customers who having never seen ice in the summertime, had to be convinced his ice was natural and safe.
All in all, the book tells of patience, hardwork, perseverence, resourcefullness, foresight, and ingenuity. Mr. Tudor built his business froms scratch, with no models to follow or others to obtain counsel from. Unfortunately, various inventions in ice-making and refrigeration (some of which Tudor contributed to) in the end doomed the frozen water trade. His tale as told in this book would be a good text for entrepeneurs to read and learn from. I highly recommend this book.
Provides a lively discourse on his accomplishments June 4, 2004
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
In 1806 the brig Favorite left Boston bound for Martinique packed with large chunks of ice cut from a frozen lake: the first venture of a Boston entrepreneur who believed he could make a fortune selling ice to people in the tropics. Despite ridicule and hardship, Tudor made his fortune and founded a huge industry in the process: The Frozen-Water Trade: A True Story provides a lively discourse on his accomplishments. The Frozen-Water Trade is the impressive and informative story of that early 19th century adventerous entrepreneur.
Tale of Commercial Endeavour and Perseverance May 31, 2004
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I picked this book up upon when I listened to an extract read on the BBC World Service several months ago. It spoke of a wild venture by a New England businessman to ship ice from Boston to the tropics. It seemed to me a fantastic and improbably story.The very fact that it was improbably caught my attention - even with the technological advances of today, when little seems impossible, the idea of an industry based on shipping frozen water thousands of miles by ship seemed a little ludicrous. It is to Weightman's credit that he transformed this almost-forgotten industry from the footnotes of history into a gripping tale of commercial endeavour and perseverance. It is an inspiring read and a fine example of how history holds more than dusty dull stories.
Fredrick Tutor April 20, 2004
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
One of the 'Books Of The Day' happened to be this one (cant remember which though) and I was not only hooked in just a few pages, but surprised at how little I knew about such an revolutionary part of our early "ice age".
While the first few chapters of the book are excellent, it starts to get a bit dry in the middle - though the reference inside Waldon about Fredric will always stick in my mind from now on.
It would have been best if it had finished up at the end of the 'Mr. Tutor' epic. Instead I felt the 'After Tutor' chapter was almost added as something to bulk up the book - interesting but just seemed out of place. Maybe it was just unpolished?
If this book didnt fill such a huge hole in what I knew - I think it would've been a 3ish. Truth be told anytime such a little gem of a book is found - I am absolutely "kept" - and with this book it was 80% of the way.
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