Tom Sky
THIS 1929 REFRIGERATOR WORKED WITHOUT ELECTRICITY
-The Crosley IcyBall had no moving parts.
-All it took was to heat one end for about 90 minutes on a stove or a kerosene burner.
-Then it produced more than 24 hours of cold inside the icebox.
-No electricity. No gas. No compressor.
-Just a simple and robust absorption principle.
At the time, it was marketed for rural areas that had neither electricity nor gas.
Some period advertisements even said: “Ice from heat” for only 2 cents per day.
And that’s not all: during a fire that destroyed an entire block of houses, an IcyBall continued to produce ice while everything around it was charred.
Why did this kind of simple, durable technology independent of electricity disappear once the electric grid spread and took over?
THIS 1929 REFRIGERATOR WORKED WITHOUT …