The Icebox, the Predecessor of Modern Refrigeration

Historic kitchen at John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site. NPS Photo

Many visitors to John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site, the birthplace home of President John F. Kennedy, notice that the historic kitchen looks a little different from a modern one. For example, the heavy, cast-iron stove uses coal and gas, rather than electricity, to cook food. The Kennedy’s toaster does use electricity, but it is still quite different from a modern toaster, since you can only toast one side of the bread at a time. One key piece that is missing from the kitchen is a refrigerator. Instead of a modern electric refrigerator, in 1917, the Kennedys had an icebox.

“Bohn Syphon” Icebox in Golden Oak, John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site. NPS Photo

What is an icebox?

Before the invention of refrigerators, an ice box was how food was kept cold.

An ice box was usually made of wood and lined with metal, usually tin or zinc. The hollow walls were packed with insulation, such as straw, sawdust, cork, or seaweed. A large block of ice was placed in a compartment in the top of the icebox. As the ice slowly melted, cool air circulated down to the shelves below, to keep produce and dairy cool.

After President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, the former family home at 83 Beals Street was turned into a museum and memorial by the president’s mother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. She furnished the museum with items she remembered having in the home back in 1917 and opened the house to public visitation on May 29, 1969. Among these items were a wooden icebox, placed in the alcove next to the kitchen. This alcove leads directly from the kitchen to the back door. This made it easy for the iceman to deliver fresh blocks of ice through the back door.

The icebox chosen for the restored home was a light wooden color, made by The Baldwin Company of Burlington, Vermont. After a firebombing that damaged the kitchen in 1975, the first antique icebox used by the historic site was replaced with a similar model.

The current icebox is a Bohn Syphon Icebox in Golden Oak, made by the White Enamel Refrigerator Co. of St. Paul, Minnesota. The adjacent photo shows the wooden casing and the strong metal clasps designed to keep the doors tightly closed.

“Bohn Syphon” icebox, with doors open. NPS Photo

Once opened, the doors reveal a series of compartments inside. On the top right is a metal lined space where the large block of ice was kept. A series of slats along the left and bottom of the compartment allows the cool air to circulate from the ice block to the rest of the ice box.

Below and next to the ice compartment are shelves for holding milk, dairy, and other perishable foods. Milk and eggs would have been kept on the wire shelves in the larger space next to the ice block. The coldest space in this icebox would have been the compartment directly below the ice block. This Bohn Syphon icebox has a small door at the very bottom. This is for the drip tray underneath to collect the melted ice water. Someone would then have emptied the melted ice water from the drip tray.

Where did the ice come from?

The ice was delivered by an iceman in a horse-drawn wagon. They used heavy metal tongs to hold and carry the large blocks of ice.The Kennedys, like other families of the time, would place a sign in their front window when they needed the iceman to come deliver more ice to their home. The ice itself was cut from frozen ponds and lakes further away from town during the wintertime. The ice-cutters used specialized tools to cut through and transport the ice.

Ice Tools, William T. Wood and Company Catalog, 1850. Library of Congress

This image shows a one-handled ice saw for cutting the ice into large blocks. The ice adze was also used for cutting ice, while the pole grapple and jack grapple were tools to hold onto the slippery blocks of ice once they were cut.

Once cut into large blocks, the ice was stored in ice houses, packed tightly and well insulated with sawdust or straw, until it was time to deliver it to customers. These ice houses helped to preserve the ice into the summer and provided a yearlong supply.

A key figure in the history of the ice industry was from the Boston area. His name was Frederic Tudor, and he became known as the “Ice King.” Tudor was one of the earliest businessmen to ship blocks of ice across the country by train, and even by ship across the ocean to other countries around the world.

Tudor also purchased and held onto the ice-harvesting rights for key ponds throughout Massachusetts. In 1847, nearly 52,000 tons of ice traveled by ship or train to 28 cities across the United States. Nearly half the ice came from Boston, and most of it was Tudor's.

Ice Harvesting in Massachusetts Gleason's Drawing Room Companion, 1852, p. 37.

The Kennedy family, however, received their ice from a different distributor. The Fresh Pond Ice Company, which was named after and initially based on the ponds Tudor had harvested ice from. This image shows ice harvesting in the early 1850s. Horses were used to drag the ice-cutters to mark the ice into large blocks. Horses also helped move the huge chunks of ice once they were cut. This video shows the many steps of the ice harvesting process in more detail.

Bohn Syphon Refrigerator Advertisement Good Housekeeping Magazine, May 1920.

What happened to the icebox?

Through the 1890s and into the 1900s, there were advances in electrical refrigeration. At first, the electricity was used to make more ice, to be used in the ice boxes. Ice, therefore, began to be produced in ice-making factories, instead of being harvested from frozen lakes. Over time, with greater access to electricity in houses, more homes began to have the electric refrigerators we are familiar with today.

While some early electric refrigerators were available as early as the 1910s, they were very much a luxury item and well out of reach for most families. The first electric refrigerator to become widely popular was made by General Electric in 1927, which customers could purchase for $520, approximately $7,000 today.

The fact that the Kennedys had an icebox in their kitchen rather than a new and more expensive electric refrigerator, is a reminder that they were a middle-class family during their time at 83 Beals Street. By 1944, the cost of electric refrigeration had come down considerably, and 85% of American households featured a refrigerator in the kitchen, instead of an icebox. All of these changes left the Kennedy’s icebox, and the iceman with his delivery wagon, to the pages of history.

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