How much did a refrigerator cost in the 1800s?

Answer 1

They had ice houses for most of the 1800s, NOT refrigerators! An ice house was a small building built over a cold natural spring -- the spring, stones, and the earth kept foods cool (not frozen). By the late 1800s, a man on a wagon would drive through neighborhoods and sell large block ice. When people did get "refrigerators", it was literally the "ice box"-- they put a block of ice into a small square metal box (like a huge clunky bread box --bread boxes were used up through the 1980s). The Ice Box kept milk and cheese cold...meats went bad fast unless wrapped and stored atop or beside the ice and metal. Women and children ran out to stop the seller of ice--called a ice man or ice huckster, and the man would bring the ice block into the kitchen and into the ice box. (A huckster was any man who went by wagon through neighborhoods to sell goods and wares, ice, or fruits and vegetables. ) This went on in rural towns through the 1920s to 1930s. Refrigerators somewhat like what we think of today, powered and with a compressor did not come into homes until after that--if families could afford it. Remember, too, most homes did not have electricity even in the early 1900s. My grandmother, born 1912, often told me stories before she died about waiting with her mother for the ice man and other hucksters to come by.

Answer 2

it costed about 16 or 17 dollars for a good one in the 1920s.

Answer 3

I think ice was available and was only for the rich or well off.They built purpose made outhouses for the storing of the precious commodity.

Answer 4

They did not have them. The refrigerator as a home electrical appliance was invented in 1913.

Answer 5

I'm pretty sure it wasn't invented yet...

Answer 6

1 cent