ICE HARVEST

ambience: Irish Harp and Octave Mandolin – Mickey Zekely

In upstate New York, the middle of January used to be ice harvest time. In the days before refrigerators, ice from ponds was carved up, stored in icehouses and used to keep dairy products cool throughout the year. And in the communities where ice was harvested, it was also a time of celebration. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

“The winters were long. You could count on six months of winter, usually.”

John Brandow was raised in Roxbury, New York, where during the thirties, he worked for a time on an ice harvesting crew.

“Coming right in the middle of the winter, ice harvesting season was anticipated with enthusiasm, really. And it was a get together — a place where friends met and talked and lunched together and it also did inject a little money into the community which sorely needed it, in the middle of the Depression, about 1938. We put in nine-hour days and it was pretty much constant work. And nobody seemed to shirk it; they rather enjoyed it. As I remember, we were paid forty cents an hour and that was, for that era, normal for hard labor. A beer, I think, was ten cents and a loaf of bread, fifteen cents. So comparatively, it wasn’t too bad. The ice harvest was a week or ten days of constant involvement and camaraderie.”

More on ice harvesting in future programs. To hear about our new CD, please visit pulseplanet.com. Pulse of the Planet is presented by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.

music

ICE HARVEST

In the days before refrigerators, winter was the season for ice harvesting.
Air Date:01/26/2000
Scientist:
Transcript:


ambience: Irish Harp and Octave Mandolin - Mickey Zekely

In upstate New York, the middle of January used to be ice harvest time. In the days before refrigerators, ice from ponds was carved up, stored in icehouses and used to keep dairy products cool throughout the year. And in the communities where ice was harvested, it was also a time of celebration. I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

"The winters were long. You could count on six months of winter, usually."

John Brandow was raised in Roxbury, New York, where during the thirties, he worked for a time on an ice harvesting crew.

"Coming right in the middle of the winter, ice harvesting season was anticipated with enthusiasm, really. And it was a get together -- a place where friends met and talked and lunched together and it also did inject a little money into the community which sorely needed it, in the middle of the Depression, about 1938. We put in nine-hour days and it was pretty much constant work. And nobody seemed to shirk it; they rather enjoyed it. As I remember, we were paid forty cents an hour and that was, for that era, normal for hard labor. A beer, I think, was ten cents and a loaf of bread, fifteen cents. So comparatively, it wasn't too bad. The ice harvest was a week or ten days of constant involvement and camaraderie."

More on ice harvesting in future programs. To hear about our new CD, please visit pulseplanet.com. Pulse of the Planet is presented by the National Science Foundation. I'm Jim Metzner.

music