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An iceman is someone who sells or delivers 
The profession was formerly much more common than it is today. From the late 19th century to mid-20th century, in cities and towns icemen would commonly make daily rounds delivering ice for
ice
Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opa ...
from a wagon
A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people.
Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...
, cart
A cart or dray (Australia and New Zealand) is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people.
It is different from the flatbed ...
, or motor-truck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame constructi ...
.
The profession was formerly much more common than it is today. From the late 19th century to mid-20th century, in cities and towns icemen would commonly make daily rounds delivering ice for icebox
An icebox (also called a cold closet) is a compact non-mechanical refrigerator which was a common early-twentieth-century kitchen appliance before the development of safely powered refrigeration devices. Before the development of electric refrige ...
es before the electric domestic refrigerator
A refrigerator, colloquially fridge, is a commercial and home appliance consisting of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump (mechanical, electronic or chemical) that transfers heat from its inside to its external environment so t ...
became commonplace.
Many icemen in the Northeastern U.S. had origins in Southern Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
. Arriving in the U.S. with little education or trade skills, many of these immigrants began ice routes, especially in New York City, where ice routes were a common sight. In those times, ice was harvested from ponds and lakes, stored in ice houses and transported to cities. Modern day icemen no longer use a wagon or cart to deliver their ice, but instead use freezer trucks which contain pallets stacked with bags of ice cubes and large blocks (known as cakes) of ice. Many of the old-fashioned small-time routes were bought out in the 1980s and 1990s by large ice corporations that produce and sell ice as well as ice machines for restaurants and bars.
The tools of the iceman were wires (to tie the bags of cubes), hooks, tongs, and ice picks. Being an iceman was arduous. Icemen usually began their day at 4:00 am and finished late in the evening, depending on both the season and day of the week. Many icemen worked seven days a week and through holidays.
As Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are '' All My Sons'' (1947), ''Death of a Salesman'' (1 ...
recalls in his autobiography ''Timebends'', "icemen had leather
Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hogs ...
vests and a wet piece of sackcloth
Sackcloth ( ''śaq'') is a coarsely woven fabric, usually made of goat's hair. The term in English often connotes the biblical usage, where the '' Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible'' remarks that haircloth would be more appropriate rendering of th ...
slung over the right shoulder, and once they had slid the ice into the box, they invariably slipped the sacking off and stood there waiting, dripping, for their money."
The occupation of ice delivery lives on through Amish
The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churches ...
communities, where ice is commonly delivered by truck and used to cool food and other perishables.
See also
*Ice trade
The ice trade, also known as the frozen water trade, was a 19th-century and early-20th-century industry, centering on the east coast of the United States and Norway, involving the large-scale harvesting, transport and sale of natural ice, an ...
*Ice cutting
Ice cutting is a winter task of collecting surface ice from lakes and rivers for storage in ice houses and use or sale as a cooling method. Rare today, it was common (see ice trade) before the era of widespread mechanical refrigeration and air c ...
Notes
# Arthur Miller, ''Timebends: A Life'' (New York, Harper & Row, 1987), 64.Bibliography
* Joseph C. Jones, J.R.: America's Icemen: An Illustrative History of the United States Natural Ice Industry 1665-1925. Humble, TX: Jobeco Books 1984. {{DEFAULTSORT:Iceman (Occupation) Obsolete occupations Water ice