OP: America's Icemen
Jobeco Books, Humble, TX, 1984. Hardcover. Very Good.
One extended power outage is enough to relieve even the most jaded person of their ingratitude toward modern technology, like refrigeration. Jack-of-all-trades and antique ice box restorer Joseph C. Jones Jr., however, does a marvelous job of reminding us of life’s luxuries in America’s Icemen (1984), an illustrated history of the ice harvesting industry in America from 1665–1925.
Jones’s text, supported by dozens of historical black and white illustrations and photos, is pleasantly immersive. From the small community obligation toward the backbreaking, unpaid labor of cutting ice blocks in the winter and storing them for everyone’s use during the summer to industrial level harvests and cross-country transportation, America’s Icemen is eye-opening and fascinating.
Ours, though unused, shows fading and wear to the navy blue jacket. Otherwise, a clean and crisp copy of the scarce hardcover.
