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stumcm OP t1_islyxs5 wrote

Boston was the centre of the international ice trade, with Wenham Lake Ice Company, trading on the name of a Massachusetts lake particularly renowned for the purity of its water. Source

As those articles say, one of the first ice-making machines in the world was invited in Geelong, Australia by Scottish-born James Harrison in 1851. Or rather, he improved upon an 1834 British design for vapour-compression refrigeration.

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cote112 t1_ism4yju wrote

It's pretty wild how little ice we get around here now.

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WahooSS238 t1_ismg9hc wrote

But it’s only 1 degree Celsius.. that’s practically nothing! /s

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FrankieMcGigglefits t1_isnb6ng wrote

Not so sure. I saw doc invent an ice machine in back to the future 3, so I'm going with that

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Decipher t1_ispgf3c wrote

He was probably basing his design on the existing one, since he was in 1885.

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Dio_Frybones t1_isnfgp5 wrote

We also (arguably) invented the ute in Geelong at the Ford factory. Sadly, with globalisation, that factory closed, and it's probably only a matter of time before we start importing ice as well. In fact, if memory serves, there was a proposal to tow a small iceberg from Antarctica into Sydney Harbour. Possibly cut up and stashed inside boogie boards.

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TacTurtle t1_isnhhdt wrote

In America they were made in the 1920s as a “roadster utility”.

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goshdammitfromimgur t1_isnje5b wrote

Always made me chuckle that Australia thinks they were the first when they were being made in the USA for about 10 years prior.

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bluaqua t1_isoahp8 wrote

Technically a ute is different from a pick-up truck. It’s come to mean the same thing now, but the original utes are actually a “utility coupé.” Notably, it’s the front part that’s different. The front of a ute is a sedan, just with the trunk sawed off and replaced with a tray. This is different from the American roadster utility, which was a soft-top. The modern pick-up I’d say has more of a trunk front, and is still different from the classic Commodore or something.

I found this out when I was curious as to why the ute has its own wiki. Turns out it literally is a different thing, way back when it was first invented.

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goshdammitfromimgur t1_ispz5vv wrote

I have always heard the justification was that the "Australian ute" was unibody and pick ups have a seperate tray. The 1927 Chev national roadster is unibody and was available as a coupe and four door sedan.

So that meets both our requirements for an "Australian ute" but built before the first one in Geelong.

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ArmageddonSnakeEye t1_isom8yh wrote

Tldr: the front of our truck looks different so we claim to have made an entire new thing.

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TheSpoonKing t1_isqhr2a wrote

So you would argue an SUV, a crossover, and a sedan are all basically the same thing and just look different, and theres no reason to bother classifying them separately at all? LMFAO

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ArmageddonSnakeEye t1_isqigkw wrote

Those are different. You're talking about a truck and just calling it another name. Aussies and their pridefulness

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TheSpoonKing t1_isqk2q3 wrote

I'm Canadian, and all I'm defending is the initial creation of the term, not the continued use of it to refer to vehicles that don't necessarily conform to its original requirements.

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Urag-gro_Shub t1_isociue wrote

Fredrick Tudor is an ancestor of my landlord, I live in one of his ice houses they used to store the ice over the summer. The walls of my house are like 18" thick. Things must have been pretty different back then though cause now the ice pond water is brown and gross

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Intensityintensifies t1_ispizaj wrote

Or people just weren’t little bitches.

Im just kidding. I grew up in the Midwest and drink frozen pond water sounds like a bad time. Maybe they imported the ice and stored it in the ice house?

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Urag-gro_Shub t1_ispwox1 wrote

I have these pictures from about 1910ish, in the bottom picture you can see my neighbor's house. Guess standards were just different?

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TheSpoonKing t1_isqhzmv wrote

of course the water is gonna look black in an early monochrome photograph being exposed by a blanket of snow under the sun...

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gnitiwrdrawkcab t1_isrezx0 wrote

It could be the area is more developed than it was back then, is your town still roughly the same size?

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acraw794 t1_isnamp1 wrote

I get my water from the wenham lake 🙂

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CopiumAddiction t1_isntorh wrote

I used to live on Wenham Lake and didn't know about this until recently.

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Awellplanned t1_isobn0i wrote

I live next to Wenham Mass and that lake is our drinking water.

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acraw794 t1_isnao4e wrote

also north woods maine was a huge ice manufacturer

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hdiggyh t1_isqllrj wrote

The Wenham historical museum has some stuff on this which is interesting. Kind of odd to think about now since that lake never freezes that solid anymore and because of the drought this summer has lost a considerable volume

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