Translations:Die Geschichte der Kältegeräte/2/en

(C)old cellars

Preserving food is a problem as old as mankind. For the longest time, ice was mined in winter and stored over the summer in deep earth cellars, so-called ice cellars. In a Chinese songbook from 1140 BC, such ice cellars are already described. The history of artificial cooling began in the 18th century, or more precisely in 1748, with an experiment by the Scottish professor William Cullen. It took another century before artificial cooling processes were developed to the point where they could be used in an industrially useful way. In 1876, Carl von Linde developed his so-called Linde process at the Technical University of Munich. Very few private households had electricity at the time, and it was to be another few decades before refrigeration appliances were also to be found in private households. One of the first manufacturers of refrigerators in the USA in the 1910s was the "Frigidair" company. The abbreviated form of the brand name quickly became a generic term in the USA - the "fridge" was born.