Historian Amy Brady Explains the American Obsession With Ice

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Beginning in the 19th century, Americans harvested ice from frozen lakes and transported it to warm places, turning ice harvesting and delivery into a lucrative business. Then came manufacturing and refrigeration, ice cream and iced tea. One of the first films made in America was of an ice hockey game. These are some of ice’s cultural moments that historian and journalist Amy Brady explores in “ICE: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks—a Cool History of a Hot Commodity.” We talk to Brady about the history of ice, the industries it has spawned and its place in present life as we face an ever-warming planet. Listen to the recent KQED reporting on alleged child labor violations in California. Guests: Amy Brady, author and historian; executive director, Orion Magazine; coeditor of "The World as We Knew It: Dispatches from a Changing Climate" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.3	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Rachel Myro in Fermina Kim.
0:53.3	Coming up on forum, you ever stop to think about
0:56.1	the irony that the more we love our ice, the more we're contributing to climate change,
1:02.0	takes energy to freeze that water, takes energy to transport it. But for the last couple hundred
1:07.1	years or so, alongside industrialization, we've grown quite fond of everything from
1:12.3	ice tea to ice hockey to refrigerated medicines. It's a complicated relationship, as we'll explore
1:19.1	this hour with Dr. Amy Brady, author of the new book, Ice, from mixed drinks to skating rinks,
1:25.1	a cool history of a hot commodity.
1:29.3	That's coming up after the news.
1:40.4	This is Forum. I'm Rachel Myro and for Mina Kim.
1:47.5	Betcha didn't know that one, Gold Rush San Francisco imported the ice for its famous cocktail scene from Alaska. Two, Shark's Ice San Jose is the largest ice rink facility in the
1:54.6	western U.S. And three, to the extent refrigerator makers display any sensitivity to the
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