(Please note: A more thorough discussion of iceboxes and our use of one appears in my book, This Victorian Life.)
We bought our antique ice box when we first moved to Port Townsend five years ago and it was always our plan to use it for its intended purpose. Concept and execution are two separate things, and admittedly it took us a while to buckle down to the idea. When we bought our house there was a rather decrepit-seeming electric refrigerator in the kitchen; we reasoned that we would let the appliance die a natural death and then switch over to the ice box which was far more in keeping with our philosophies of historical living. (Incidentally, the term ice box was rarely used in the nineteenth-century. The special cabinet which now usually goes by that name was simply called a refrigerator. "Ice box" existed as a phrase, but until the early twentieth-century it was the exception rather than the rule in common parlance. When electric refrigerators started usurping the old name of refrigerator, ice box stepped up to fill the linguistic gap. We do generally refer to our food storage cabinet as an ice box though, just to avoid a lengthy explanation to anyone outside our home.)
As we settled into our Victorian home, we grew increasingly frustrated with the electric fridge's steadfast refusal to die. After a few years of glaring at the anachronistic behemoth looming over our kitchen, we decided to stop waiting and make the switch over to the ice box regardless of the electric fridge's health.
Port Townsend had its own ice works in 1891[1], and most urban dwellers in America during the Victorian period had ice delivered right to their door. Sadly this is no longer an option, so we had to work out a system where Gabriel buys block ice from one of the few stores in our region that still sells it, transports it home in a cooler, then I rush out and help him unload it before it melts.
We started by moving over the condiments, since most of them probably could have sat on our cupboard shelves without any refrigeration at all and been relatively unaffected. The vegetables came next, since they were also relatively shelf stable. A week or so later we moved the eggs, cheese and butter. Seeing no signs of food poisoning after another few weeks we finally moved over the liquid dairy products (milk and cream) and Gabriel's meats. With that, we unplugged the electric refrigerator and awaited developments. When we had been getting along just fine with the ice box alone, we sold the electric fridge. Our milk is actually colder this way than when we were using an electric fridge because we put it (and the meat) right in the same compartment as the ice.
As we settled into our Victorian home, we grew increasingly frustrated with the electric fridge's steadfast refusal to die. After a few years of glaring at the anachronistic behemoth looming over our kitchen, we decided to stop waiting and make the switch over to the ice box regardless of the electric fridge's health.
Port Townsend had its own ice works in 1891[1], and most urban dwellers in America during the Victorian period had ice delivered right to their door. Sadly this is no longer an option, so we had to work out a system where Gabriel buys block ice from one of the few stores in our region that still sells it, transports it home in a cooler, then I rush out and help him unload it before it melts.
We started by moving over the condiments, since most of them probably could have sat on our cupboard shelves without any refrigeration at all and been relatively unaffected. The vegetables came next, since they were also relatively shelf stable. A week or so later we moved the eggs, cheese and butter. Seeing no signs of food poisoning after another few weeks we finally moved over the liquid dairy products (milk and cream) and Gabriel's meats. With that, we unplugged the electric refrigerator and awaited developments. When we had been getting along just fine with the ice box alone, we sold the electric fridge. Our milk is actually colder this way than when we were using an electric fridge because we put it (and the meat) right in the same compartment as the ice.
Meltwater collects in a drip tray underneath the wooden cabinet as the ice diminishes, and I empty the tray twice a day. We had been using our icebox regularly for about half a year when it occurred to me that the appliance would have truly interesting potential as a component in a detective story. Gabriel and I do consulting for films and books, and one of our favorite projects so far has been an ongoing mystery series set in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, A Person Known to Me. One morning after I emptied the drip tray I wrote to the series' directors with some insights into how an ice box could fit into their piece. I pointed out that the water in the drip tray would give a detective an outside estimate for the amount of time that had passed since a vanished person had last been in their house and caring about mundane tasks. If someone's ice compartment was full and they suddenly disappeared, the meltwater in the drip tray would overflow onto the floor sometime the next day. (In the nineteenth-century some houses had drains through the floor directly from the icebox to the outer world, but this was fairly uncommon.) If the ice was completely melted a good detective would probably check the temperature of the water in the drip tray to see how warm it had gotten, the same way he/she would check the temperature of coffee or tea in a mug left on the table to see how cold that had gotten.
An icebox could come into detective plots in another interesting way as well: Back when ice was delivered, icemen had an interesting role in the community because they made regular deliveries and (unlike the postman or milkman) could actually carry their product right into the house - not necessarily in every case, but certainly if it was a heavy delivery and the woman asked him to. (Our house actually has a separate door directly into the kitchen for deliveries.) Because icemen were muscular, knew all their women customers well and came into the house, there were lots of bawdy jokes about them.) An iceman would be in a unique position to tell detectives if anything was changed or out of the ordinary in a particular kitchen - he would be somewhat familiar with his customer's kitchens, but would have a more neutral perspective than a member of the family.
Because ice boxes and kitchens in general were solidly in women's sphere of technology, a lady detective would think of these things before a male detective did. She would also probably think of interviewing the iceman before it occurred to the male detectives. The iceman would be less suspicious of a lady detective too; since there were so many bawdy jokes about icemen and private detectives were often hired to dig up dirt in divorce / annulment cases, the iceman would probably be immediately on the defensive with a male detective.
The blocks of ice are large (the biggest we can get are 10 lb blocks, but they would have used even bigger ones when it was delivered by icemen. Our ice compartment holds up to 80 lbs; some iceboxes were bigger, some smaller). Every once in a while, there will be a loud CLUNK as the melting of a lower block causes an upper block to fall off of it and shift around. It can be quite startling in an otherwise perfectly quiet house. This morning before sun-up I was at my desk writing when I heard a loud BANG from the kitchen. I've been reading lots of spooky stories lately and my first instantaneous thought was, "Ghost!" then after a split-second of reflection I realized that it was only the ice shifting in the icebox.
[1] "Port Townsend, Wash." North American Review Advertiser, New York, 1891, p. 18.
An icebox could come into detective plots in another interesting way as well: Back when ice was delivered, icemen had an interesting role in the community because they made regular deliveries and (unlike the postman or milkman) could actually carry their product right into the house - not necessarily in every case, but certainly if it was a heavy delivery and the woman asked him to. (Our house actually has a separate door directly into the kitchen for deliveries.) Because icemen were muscular, knew all their women customers well and came into the house, there were lots of bawdy jokes about them.) An iceman would be in a unique position to tell detectives if anything was changed or out of the ordinary in a particular kitchen - he would be somewhat familiar with his customer's kitchens, but would have a more neutral perspective than a member of the family.
Because ice boxes and kitchens in general were solidly in women's sphere of technology, a lady detective would think of these things before a male detective did. She would also probably think of interviewing the iceman before it occurred to the male detectives. The iceman would be less suspicious of a lady detective too; since there were so many bawdy jokes about icemen and private detectives were often hired to dig up dirt in divorce / annulment cases, the iceman would probably be immediately on the defensive with a male detective.
The blocks of ice are large (the biggest we can get are 10 lb blocks, but they would have used even bigger ones when it was delivered by icemen. Our ice compartment holds up to 80 lbs; some iceboxes were bigger, some smaller). Every once in a while, there will be a loud CLUNK as the melting of a lower block causes an upper block to fall off of it and shift around. It can be quite startling in an otherwise perfectly quiet house. This morning before sun-up I was at my desk writing when I heard a loud BANG from the kitchen. I've been reading lots of spooky stories lately and my first instantaneous thought was, "Ghost!" then after a split-second of reflection I realized that it was only the ice shifting in the icebox.
[1] "Port Townsend, Wash." North American Review Advertiser, New York, 1891, p. 18.
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