« Previous | Next »
Think it: Treading water
Published on 22/11/08
by Zac Echola
Ice farming. It is real. Or rather, it was a real business. Henry David Thoreau wrote about it in Walden. It was big business in the 19th Century, especially in New England.
Early on, harvesting companies mostly shipped ice around the world by boat to hospitals and other large establishments that needed temperature regulation. As time went on and the ice harvesting business grew and expanded, ice boxes turned up in consumers’ homes, where they’d get regular deliveries. By the 1920s nearly the entire industry had been wiped out.
Two technological advances lead to the demise of ice harvesting: First, artificial ice-making in quantity; Second, consumer-level electric refrigeration.
Artificial ice in quantity was born from several patents from people like Jacob Perkins (who also invented a printing press), Ferdinand Carreé and Dr. John Gorrie. They employed several techniques using evaporation, ammonia and gas. These men filed their patents early at the height of natural ice farming and it took decades to make their inventions commercially viable. So the New England harvesters soldiered on, dominating the market.
But harvesters ignored the idea that would lead to their industry’s demise. Artificial ice could be manufactured year round, replacing the need for large-scale harvesting operations in New England. You could open ice manufacturing plants in places like Louisiana, and they did. Yet harvesters still considered their product superior in many ways to artificial ice.
By the time personal refrigeration came around, that idea expanded to producing artificial ice at the consumer level, essentially wiping out the need for tying up capital in mass shipping and distribution networks. Consumers could create their own damn ice, we just had to build the tools for them to do it. Higher profit margins at lower revenue, produced at scale to a wider consumer base, eventually beat out the burdensome mechanics of ice farming.
Now, when most people read about the ice harvest in Walden, they probably figure Thoreau speaks metaphorically.
Ice harvesting still exists, by the way. It’s a niche event that still goes on in some small New England towns. But it’s more of a hobby, like Civil War reenactments, than a commercial venture.
Surely we can draw parallels to our current state of affairs.
Industries as a whole do not adapt to changing times. Welcome to capitalism 101. I’d venture the guess that the few individual companies that do make the transition look nothing like their former incarnations.
In my next few posts I want to look more specifically at some elements of the business in transition, the elements that should no longer be considered trasitioning any longer and a few examples of how some properties are handling all this.
The end. Or is it?
Please leave a comment so I know what you think about this post. After that, check out It's randomonium! Or, if you're so inclined, take a gander at what I'm reading and my del.icio.us links.
Trackback URL: Treading water.
Tags: