Review of "The Frozen-Water Trade: A True Story," by Gavin Weightman

 Review of

The Frozen-Water Trade: A True Story, by Gavin Weightman, ISBN 078686740x

Five out of five stars

Great story about creating a market

 One of the most amazing entrepreneurs in American history is a man named Frederic Tudor. He was a visionary of the first order, in the early years of the nineteenth century, he understood that a market could be created for one of nature’s products, ice. His vision was to harvest ice from frozen lakes and rivers during the New England winters, store it and then place it on ships to be transported to tropical climates as well as the cities on the eastern seaboard in the summer. Some of the ices was transported all the way to British India. 

 Although his first attempts were failures and he spent some time in debtor’s prison, Tudor never lost faith in his vision, and he became a very wealthy man. His story is one of a person literally creating a market where none existed. After the initial success where people were able to enjoy ice cream and cold drinks in the heat of the summer, the demand grew dramatically. Even though it was a simple product, there were some significant technical difficulties. Finding a way to put ice on a ship and have it travel from New England all the way to India was a challenge. The ship had to cross the equator twice and spend significant time in the tropics. This was before the laws of heat transfer were fully understood, so it largely trial and error. 

 This book was a pleasure to read, making you realize that there are some simple products and as yet untapped markets for those products yet to be exploited. In many ways, the development of the ice market helped drive the demise of the transport of ice. For it helped drive the development of the modern electric powered refrigerators and ice making machines that rendered the long-range transport of ice inefficient. This is one of the best business history books that I have ever read.