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The History of the Refrigerator: A Cool Invention
An overview of artificial cooling from the 1700s to the home refrigerator, tracing the main milestones, the people involved and what remains disputed.
Home and Everyday Life
Cooling Appliances
Refrigerators and air conditioners.
The Development of the Air Conditioner: A Cooling Revolution
How air conditioning reshaped cities, buildings and regional growth, and why its biggest effects came from where people could live and work rather than the machines.
The Development of the Refrigerator: A Cool Invention
An engineering history of refrigerants and compressors, from toxic ammonia and sulfur dioxide to CFCs, the ozone problem and today's replacements.
The Forgotten History of the First Refrigerator with a Freezer
How separate freezer compartments, quick-frozen foods and home freezers emerged in the early to mid 1900s, and why there is no single first refrigerator-freezer.
The Invention of the Air Conditioner and Its Impact on Comfort
A look at the social impact of air conditioning: how controlled indoor climate changed building design, working life and where people choose to live.
The Invention of the Air Conditioner: A Breath of Fresh Air
Willis Carrier's 1902 humidity-control design for a Brooklyn printing plant, the main breakthrough in air conditioning, and what came before and after it.
The Invention of the Air Conditioner: A Comforting Invention
How the room air conditioner developed in the 1930s and reached households in the 1950s, from heavy early window units to a common summer appliance.
The Invention of the Refrigerator and Its Impact on Food Preservation
How mechanical cooling replaced ice harvesting, salting and cellars in keeping food from spoiling, and how it changed shopping, diets and household habits.
The Invention of the Refrigerator: A Cool Idea
The early experiments of Cullen, Evans, Perkins, Gorrie and others in making cold by evaporation, long before any home refrigerator existed.
The Invention of the Refrigerator: A Cool Innovation
Absorption and compressor refrigeration designs, the work of Carré and Linde, and the gas-driven Electrolux refrigerator with no moving parts.
The Invention of the Refrigerator: A Cooling Revolution
How refrigerated rail cars and ships carried meat, fruit and dairy over long distances in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and reshaped global food trade.
The Invention of the Refrigerator: Keeping Food Fresh for Centuries
Pre-electric cooling: ice houses, Persian yakhchals, the 19th-century ice trade and the iceboxes that came before refrigerators.
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Home Appliances Microwave ovens and the electric kitchen. Everyday Inventions Barcodes, cards and games from daily life. Sewing and Laundry Sewing machines and washing machines in the home. Fun and Fitness Rides, boards and exercise machines. Food Preservation and Cooking How people kept food from spoiling and how cooking tools evolved.