It’s not hard to get warmer when it’s cold — humans have been able to do that ever since our ancestors mastered fire. But it has always been harder to cool down when it’s hot — even for the richest and most powerful people on the planet. The Roman Emperor Elagabalus was one of them. He sent his slaves into the mountains to bring down snow and pile it in his garden, where breezes would carry the cooler air inside.
Needless to say, this sort of approach to air conditioning was going to be difficult to bring to the masses. That didn’t stop Frederic Tudor from trying — and making a fortune in the process. Tudor was a nineteenth-century entrepreneur from Boston, Massachusetts. He carved blocks of ice from New England’s frozen lakes in winter, packed them in sawdust as insulation and shipped them to warmer climes for summer. People couldn’t get enough of Tudor’s ice — indeed, some mild New England winters caused panic about an ‘ice famine’.
Your organisation does not have access to this article.
Sign up today to give your students the edge they need to achieve their best grades with subject expertise
Subscribe
