Well, no, why would they, it was about Frederic Tudor the original ice-baron.....
There were other pioneers of refrigeration than Jim Harrison, many of them much more successful, such as the Frenchman Carré, whose ammonia-based method became the default standard, and is still used today as the basis of 3-way refrigerators running on gas and electricity (grid and battery)suhc as those on boats and in RVs and caravans.
Harrison's contribution was the compression and evaporator plate method, still used today in all other forms of refrigeration, but not recognised at the time.
Initially, the ice distribution system was set up to house huge blocks distributed to large houses, and eventually, competition drove the price down so that the middle classes could afford ice for drinks and ice cream and keeping fresh food chilled in 'ice boxes'.
Ice was shipped from Boston to Bombay and even to Melbourne and Sydney..!!
Because of the competition, the price of ice got to a few cents a pound, and due to the high price of coal required to fire the boilers that drove the 'ice-making *machines*', they were unable to compete on price.....making ice....
So it wasn't until efficiencies in the process, and the conversion to electric power later in the 19th C that 'refrigeration' (ie: mechanical cooling of the *air*) really took over from ice as the cheapest means of refrigeration, at least for commercial shipping, not so much households, as the modern 'fridge' didn't come into being until the twenties, really.
Except during the US Civil War, when Northern ice supplies were barred from Southern ports, and Carré's ice making machines briefly took over as the Southern supplier of (somewhat comparatively expensive) ice. After the war the block ice trade re-opened and killed off the machine-made ice.
As this thread is about ice-cooling, mention of Tudor was appropriate, whereas objecting to non-mention of Harrison is not, in context.
Nonetheless a good point, and the Geelong Museum has loads on one of it's most famous businessmen.
Fascinating subject, refrigeration, mainly because, as any good Aussie should know, it's ALL ABOUT THE BEER..!!!!!!
ROTFL
Posted Saturday 9 May 2015 @ 2:34:43 am from IP
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