Best of The History Guy: Summer

foreign [Music] it being spring here in the northern hemisphere it's time for us to start to consider our own little patches of Heaven industry research firm ibisworld estimates the value of the American Landscaping and Lawn Care industry at 115 billion dollars employing some 1.2 million people and Lawton services provider longstarter estimated that Americans spent collectively some 5.2 billion minutes taking care of Lawns and Gardens in 2014 activities on which the statistics website statistia estimates the average American household spends around 502 dollars per year but how it turns out that the average Americans spends some 70 hours a year working on their lawns is a tale of Economic and cultural history and that deserves to be remembered the word lawn is derived from the Middle English word land meaning a glater opening in the woods lawn then began to mean also a common area in a village where Farmers could graze livestock a place that may have looked something like a modern lawn given the natural Mowing and fertilizing the idea of the shared lawn however shows the difference in the understanding of a lawn at the time as this space is near houses were reserved for growing vegetables fruits and herbs the space around a home was simply too important to feed in supporting the people living there to waste on empty space the original concept of a dwelling surrounded by grass likely came from medieval castles which would have the area around them clear to Forest in order to provide a clear field of vision for Defenders the area thus cleared would then naturally filled with grasses but those grasses would find other uses the sport of Lawn Bowling simply called bowls is in fact ancient with archaeological evidence of a game where balls were rolled with the goal of coming nearest a Target in Egypt some 7 000 years ago a similar game related to the modern game of bocce was popular in Rome some 2000 years ago since the game was commonly played among Roman legionnaires the sport expanded with the Empire but neither the Egyptian or the Roman game depended upon a flat expanse of grass and both were more likely played on dirt it's not certain where the tradition of playing on a cut field of grass originated although there is speculation that the idea originated in France but there is documentary evidence of the use of deliberately cultivated Turf grasses in England as early as the 12th century for Bowling Greens the oldest known Bowling Green for Target style bowling to survive to modern times was built in 1299 in Southampton and is still used by the Southampton Bowling Club the use of Lawns was most likely originally popularized as a location for other sports as well sport of golf developed in Scotland during the high Middle Ages and tennis was being mentioned in European literature in the 16th century ball and mallet games like modern croquet developed in Europe in the 17th century and badminton derived from traditional games played in India and China came to England in the mid 19th century perhaps it was the association with castles homes of the wealthier perhaps it was simply a landscaping element but the idea of a lush carefully cut green grass long gained popularity in the latter half of the 17th century is part of the Magnificent Gardens of Rich Estates the legendary landscape artist Andre lenorte used expanses of green grass called Tapas verde in the Magnificent Gardens that he helped to design at places like the Chateau de Chantilly London's Greenwich Park and of course the Magnificent Gardens of Versailles but at the time the only way to keep your tapest very cut short and smooth was with a scythe cutting grass evenly with the Scythe was labor intensive for the cutting and sweeping requiring great skill and thus was very expensive although even the wealthy made use of natural lawn mowing by grazing animals but the practicality of Lawns for common houses the visceral desire for which some scientists claim may have derived from ancient origins in Africa where expanses of low-lying turf grass allowed humans to be able to both spot prey and predators can be credited to Edwin beard budding born in 1796 budding was a freelance engineer from Stroud gloucestershire working among the British textile industry he invented several things including making improvements on a carting machine machine that disentangles and processes fibers that can then be woven among the inventions for which she has given credit is the adjustable spanner but his most influential patent was patent number 6081 granted August 31st 1830 a new combination and application of machinery for the purpose of cropping and cheering the vegetable surface of Lawns grass plants and pleasure grounds button got his idea from a cross-cutting device used in textile manufacturing that used a cutting cylinder to trim the uneven nap from a Woolen cloth and give it a smooth finish his device which he reportedly tested at night to protect the idea from being stolen used a 19 inch frame made of wrought iron the mower was pushed from behind the rear Land roller drove gears to transfer the drive to the knives of The Cutting cylinder there was an additional roller placed in between the cutting cylinder and the Land roller which was adjustable to alter the height of the cut the grass clippings were thrown forward into a tray like box the patent description added Country Gentlemen may find in using my machine themselves in amusing useful and healthy exercise two of the first machines when two Regents Park Zoological Gardens in London and the Oxford colleges Mr Curtis the four minute Regents Park set of the machine it does as much work as six or eight men with size and brooms performing the hole so perfectly is to not leave a mark of any kind behind budding went into partnership with a local engineer and manufactured his device selling around a thousand of his machines in the 1830s the design would develop over time initially a handle was added to allow the motion of the machine to be assisted by someone pulling from the front it took nearly a decade before designs added a harness for a horse or pony pulled version versions that use chains rather than gears making the device lighter came out in the 1850s the British agricultural Machinery Company ransoms Sims and Jeffries started producing mowers under budding's design in 1832. in their history of mowing the European Institute of golf course Architects note that in 1902 The Firm introduced an innovation that would change the face of lawn care shortly after the dawn of the 20th century ransom's Engineers produced the world's first petrol driven lawn mower this single innovation in 1902 was to change the way that grass was cut forever The Innovation however would take some time to be adopted by professional greenskeepers and even longer for Home Lawn Care American agronomist Dr James Beard who was so much of an expert on grass that he was referred to among crop scientists as the pope of turf grass noted that the development of Home Lawns ironically a connection to the wild has been intrinsically linked to prosperity and development as he explained basically Turf grasses were developed by modern civilizations in order to enhance the quality of life of humans the more technically Advanced a civilization the more widely Turf grasses are used the legendary American landscaper Frederick Law Olmsted who designed New York Central Park designed suburbs where each house had a lawn in the 1850s strangely it was the industrially manufactured lawn mower that was essential to The Lawns that were the very symbol of the desire to escape the industrialized City in 1929 William Beasley patented a new lawnmower design that cut the grass horizontal to the grass supposed to perpendicular the design used by most modern lawnmowers today new manufacturers notably the Toro company brought more affordable lawn mowers to Market in the 1930s and 40s and lawn care of the sale of lawn mowers increased after the second world war as families moved to the newly created suburbs American inventor Cecil Elwood Pond was one of those returning veterans his father Elmer did not like mowing lawns and had been producing two-wheeled walk-behind tractors for lawn mowing using Surplus motorcycle and automotive parts the two formed Wheel Horse products to Market their mowers and in 1954 introduced the four-wheel tractor lawn mower a still popular design that served the growing Market of returning GIS who didn't actually enjoy pushing a lawnmower Milan became indelibly a part of American culture because of developer William Jared Levitz levittowns his seven large housing developments made after World War II and designed for returning veterans and their families became the model for Suburban living the houses built assembly line style so that they could be produced quickly and inexpensively were very popular a veteran taking advantage of the GI bill could buy a Levittown home for just four hundred dollars Lawns were an essential part of the 11 Town plan houses came with instructions to maintain perfect weed-free Lawns the lawn was essential Levitt argued to the charm and beauty of the individual home love its designs so to find American living the Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century however the planned communities did receive criticism for their emphasis on uniformity and Conformity making the care of the lawn as much a social responsibility as an amenity the Levittown communities were also criticized for racial covenants the website untapped New York noted that a clause in the original Levittown Covenant prevented tenants from allowing non-caucasians to use or occupy Levitt houses later Federal housing Administration loan rules also included racial covenants that would ensure that levittowns would at least be racially segregated protests over the covenants began almost as soon as the first houses were being sold and levittowns in their lawns became a focal point in the American debate over housing policy that would eventually lead to the fair housing act titles eight and nine of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. grass Lawns are so Central to American life that a 2017 article in Scientific American described them as a physical manifestation of the American dream of home ownership according to estimates based on NASA satellite imagery today they're somewhere around 40 million Acres of lawn in the continental United States making turf grass the single largest irrigated crop in the country American Lawns take up three times as much space as irrigated corn fully 20 percent of the land area of the states of Massachusetts in New Jersey are covered in turf grass and while 75 percent of homeowners surveyed agreed that my lawn and garden are a reflection of my personality there are downsides a study of emergency room incidents determined that the U.S averages 84 944 injuries from lawn mowers annually in the American Academy of orthopedic surgeons determined that lawnmower accidents are the number one cause of amputations among children in the United States concerns over the water demands of Lawns including restrictions on watering Lawns have become common in western states affected by droughts and there's a movement among some homeowners to reduce or eliminate Lawns out of pure dislike for the chore of keeping them a CBS News poll in 2011 found that for one in five Americans mowing the lawn was their least liked chore ranked lower than raking leaves and shoveling snow the anti-lawn movement was summarized in the 2015 editorial published in the Chicago Tribune entitled commentary Lawns are a soul-crushing Time suck and most of us would be better off without them in the aversion to lawn maintenance is possibly manifesting in another way a 2016 consumer survey by the Association of landscape professionals found out that quote the majority of Americans lack basic knowledge about how to properly care for and maintain their lawns the US is certainly not the only lawn obsessed culture in the world but the amount of time and money that we spend on our Lawns actually dwarfs other lawn obsessed cultures like those in Australia in the United Kingdom and while there do seem to be more and more people who are criticizing the economics of or maybe simply dislike taking care of Lawns the Landscaping software company dynacorp notes that there's been something of a Renaissance in interest in lawns in the era since the coveted pandemic as people more likely to be working from home have become more interested in their home environment and so it seems that for many of us for the foreseeable future the American dream will continue to include a patch of mode green [Music] it's late June and we are well into Prime barbecuing season and I know I'm not the only one who thinks that because according to a 2015 survey by the industry group The Hearth Patio and Barbecue association or hpba nearly three quarters of American adults on either a grill or a smoker now of course cooking over an open flame isn't anything new the the first definitive evidence of a human ancestor controlling fire goes back from about two million years but the Backyard Barbecue is a unique cultural phenomenon and it has a unique history in the United States where it predates European settlement and has been intimately tied to politics to culture into history it is history that deserves to be remembered to start in The Culinary world and among certain Grill connoisseurs there is an important difference between grilling and barbecue the general idea is that grilling is done with the lid up and heat applied only to one side of the food at a time while barbecuing is slow cooking with the lid closed providing heat all around the difference is important if you're trying to decide what kind of Grill you want to use or if you need a conversation starter at the Fourth of July barbecue and it does have some historical importance because several different distinct Regional styles of barbecue developed in the United States and how the food was cooked is important to those Regional Styles but the history of grilling and barbecuing is intimately linked and most Americans use the terms interchangeably and of course barbecuing is not limited to the United States I claim would be an insult to the cuisine of Asian cultures Korean bulgogi marinated meat cooked on a grill has been around at least for thousands of years the general idea is that meat was rare and expensive and usually cooked into soup if a family had the luxury of eating meat that wasn't cooked into soup then they wanted to prepare it in the most tasty way possible the meat would be thinly sliced marinated and cooked over a fire however what's commonly called Korean barbecue today largely developed since the 1980s deviates from traditional methods and has lots of Western influence similarly cultural traditions of roasting meat superfire were common in China Europe in the Middle East dang back to pre-history documented recipes and instructions for meat roasting date back to the Middle Ages so while of course the United States didn't invent the idea of roasting meat over an open fire it did take on a particular cultural significance here in 1985 author Steve Smith wrote in his article the rhetoric of barbecue a southern right in ritual in the journal studies in popular culture that in the south in many respects barbecue is taken as seriously as religion he refers to the many styles of barbecue in the United States has barbecue cults and while barbecue has particularly significance in the United States the method and tradition in North America well predates the United States the word barbecue which has multiple different spellings that are sometimes a point of argument among the different barbecue Cults is derived from the Taino indigenous people of the Caribbean the term referred to a frame made of green sticks the frames were used for sleeping but also for drawing or smoking meat in fact early European observers suggested the term referred to in a platform in the earliest known European reference in 1609 was describing a corn crib a structure built to dry corn while protecting it from vermin but the references did mention such a platform is used to both dry and smoke fish and the Caribbean word came to be used generally for the process of roasting on a rack over a fire you might have heard other stories for example that it was derived from The Fringe where Barb uh Q would roughly mean beard to tail or from a restaurant that served whiskey beer and had pool tables and thus was called bar beer q and you'll sometimes find that sort of nonsense written on menus in different barbecue places but Robert Moss and his excellent book on the subject barbecue the history of an American institution notes that the etymology coming from the Taino word is clear and that the Oxford English Dictionary discounts out those other stories and despite the name being Caribbean and was possibly carried North by slaves who first spent time in Barbados before being moved North the practice of using such a platform to dry smoke or roast various Meats was common among Native Americans along the Eastern seaboard the Native American traditions of roasting meat were then supplemented when Europeans brought cattle sheep goats and Hogs to the new world in 1540 Explorer Hernando de Soto attended a feast with the Chickasaw tribe in what is present-day Mississippi where a pig was roasted on a barbecue the practice was readily adopted by the American colonists where the term came not just to mean the object the barbecue or the practice barbacoing but also came to mean social event while the practice was popular across the colonies it particularly took a root in the South where the immigrants from Southern and Western England were more used to a culture of roasting and broiling Meats practice was also particularly popular because the colonists of the South favored Pork pigs had been imported from the beginning of the Jamestown Colony where they thrived pigs forage well with minimal care reproduced quickly and are the most efficient of all the domesticated animals in terms of converting feed to meat the cash crop of tobacco requires large Parcels of land and that is also particularly suitable for raising Pigs by 1860 the estimated value of this house pigs was nearly double the value of the South's cotton although pigs usually have to forage wild in the woods were difficult to Accurate count the pigs are great for barbecue an animal that can be roasted whole and provide enough food for a large social event matched with the southern hospitality culture barbecues became common social events and George Washington's diary includes attendance at several barbecues as social events figured prominently in Virginia newspapers from the early 18th century on the events were feasts that most often featured Hogs roasted whole although beef quarters might also be included an account suggests that they were attended by all levels of society now if it included music and alcohol which sometimes might be drunk to excess inevitably the feast became part of the American political landscape with barbecues coinciding with election day becoming a subtle way for candidates to ply voters and despite generosity without actively campaigning considered uncouth at the time but the tradition developed differently in different places in South Carolina unlike Virginia the barbecues weren't a family affair they were afraid that were only attended by males and they tended to be hard drinking Affairs or there was something called the barbecue law which meant that guests had to match each other drink for drink or else face humiliation in my day we just called that College not only were cultural Traditions different but the method was as well with Regents basting or spicing the meat with different concoctions the beginnings of the barbecue Cults mentioned by Smith according to Smithsonian Magazine in July of 2013 these differences were influenced by the tastes of original immigrants with for example North Carolina's vinegar-based sauces being a remnant of Britain's penchant for the tart sauce whereas the mustard bait sauces of South Carolina represent the taste of the large population of French and German immigrants in that colony other barbecue Traditions develop because of the nature of the economy and the location thus Texas barbecue emphasizes beef such as slow smoked brisket traditional Tennessee Barbecue is exclusively pork and tends to be sweet the development of the river trade which allowed easy access to molasses Kansas city-style barbecue was developed by a man from Memphis who brought the tradition of a sweet tomato-based barbecue sauce but combined it with the Western availability of using beef and other meats along with pork making it an amalgamation of east and west As Americans move west they took a barbecue tradition with them a new barbecue culture Rose the naturalists and famous painter of birds John James Audubon wrote of a Fourth of July barbecue in Kentucky all appearances conspired to predict the Speedy commencement of a banquet such as Mesut the vigorous appetite of American woodsmen no personal invitation was required where everyone was welcomed by his neighbor and from the governor to the guider of the plow all met with light hearts and merry faces barbecues were especially used to celebrate Independence Day still the most popular barbecuing day in America these Traditions also started to include other celebrations like parades and were followed by patriotic speeches and toasts these not only reinforce their sense of community but allowed ambitious men the opportunity to put themselves in the front of the public to demonstrate their patriotism thus barbecues became an essential part of the early American political landscape as the franchise expanded in a greater amount of the populace was allowed to vote campaigning went from uncouth to essential and barbecues allowed a forum were candidates for office could meet and understand the voters political barbecues became a part of significant political movements through the U.S throughout the 19th century including women's suffrage and prohibition while the production of wood charcoal for industrial uses like producing Metals had existed from ancient times the invention of a machine to press charcoal briquettes by Ellsworth B a zoyer in 1897 made a convenient fuel for outside grilling Henry Ford used the Press process on what byproducts of Automotive manufacturing Ford acquired significant Timberland in Michigan for the wood used in automobile parts like the frame dashboard and steering wheel looking for a way to monetize byproducts like tree stumps and sawdust he had a plant designed by Thomas Edison installed at his lumber yard which produced pillow-shaped charcoal briquettes in the 1930s Ford started marketing picnic kits which included Ford charcoal briquettes and a portable grill through his car dealerships capitalizing on the idea of a motor car as a means of outdoor adventure eventually Ford charcoal was bought and named after the man who managed the operation Edward Kingsford today Kingsford Charcoal is the largest maker of charcoal for outside grills with an 80 U.S market share while barbecue sauce was initially homemade the commercially produced sauce was marketed in the US as early as 1909 and today commercial barbecue sauce is a two billion a year industry the barbecue culture of the US took a significant turn after the second world war with increased prosperity and Suburban living combined with the millions of GIS who've gotten used to cooking on a fire to create the Suburban tradition of the Backyard Barbecue many suburban homes had elaborate brick grills installed in the backyard became a primary method of bringing together Neighbors the tradition changed further in 1951 a Chicago metal working company was filling contracts to make Marine buoys for the Coast Guard a company salesman named George Steven who was an Aficionado of outdoor grilling cut a boy in half and use the top for a lid he mounted Three Lakes to it and invented the kettle-shaped portable grill eventually he scraped together enough money to buy a controlling steak in the metal working company Weber Brothers Metal Works renamed it Weber Stephen and began selling Weber grills still the nation's best-selling brand competitors Hasty bake and charbroil also produce portable grills although they did not quite match the popularity of the kettle design in 1932 Louis McLaughlin started the Chicago combustion company focusing on burners that were fired by gas he adapted the burners for commercial cooking creating a gas-fired broiler called broil burger for use in restaurants by 1954 he adapted the design to create a portable gas cooker that was fueled using a 20-pound propane cylinder that was used by plumbers today gas grills represent about two-thirds of U.S household grills the industry flourished in 1952 commercial barbecue device sales were one million dollars by 1959 sales were 75 billion dollars in 1958 one-third of American families had a barkyard grill or fireplace magazines representing American life started including grilling recipes and new Regional styles were born such as in California a state where weather is amenable to grilling and where grilling took on aspects of both Mexican and cowboy culture or in Hawaii with their unique Polynesian flavors the institution facilitated other social changes since grilling was generally seen to be a man's Province grilling allowed the 1950s Housewives to take a break from cooking on the weekend even though gender roles had changed in America a 2015 survey still found that men are twice as likely as women to describe themselves as the household's Grill Master while the percentage of U.S adults who own grills has remained stable for a couple of decades Grill sales continue to increase and that's largely because there's simply so much more available these days in addition to huge numbers of different kinds of charcoal grills and gas grills there's also now wood pellet grills and infrared grills and they're even high-end grills that you can operate with a smart app that will send you a text when it's time to flip your meat the market for grills and accessories in the United States is expected to be about 2.6 billion dollars in 2021 even though American makers are facing increasing competition from foreign sources barbecue is an integral part of American culture dating from before the nation's founding it combines the taste of European colonists and Native Americans has become intimately tied to Regional history and pride and the Backyard Barbecue continues to be one of the most popular cultural events in a nation that consumes an estimated 50 billion hamburgers and 20 billion hot dogs a year in a 2018 survey some 72 percent of U.S Grill owners cited flavor is one of the reasons that they Grill but more than half in addition cited lifestyle 40 in addition-sided entertainment and some 18 cited Health Jack Goldman president of the hpba noted the cultural significance when he said barbecuing is no longer just a Pastime it is an integral part of North American living it was July 14 1850 and July 2002 edition of Smithsonian Magazine explains a French console by the name of Monsieur Rosen was celebrating Bastille Day with a number of friends in the town of appalachicola Florida when he produced a Marvel large platters of chill champagne on ice on 1850 ice in a Gulfport town where the average low temperature in July was 74 degrees Fahrenheit would have been a rare and expensive commodity with had to have been harvested in the north and hauled to the South but Mr rosen's ice was unique created by machine invented by a local physician John gory and that chilled champagne on ice is thought to be the first public demonstration of machine made ice an idea that was more controversial than you might have thought would be another 90 years before many of us would be able to enjoy such a machine in our homes raising two questions one why did it take so long and two what did people do to chill their drinks before it did the surprising history of ice making deserves to be remembered the utility of ice is a method for preserving food seems to be understood at least from ancient times this tablet written in cuneiform some 3 800 years ago and preserved in the Louvre records that King zimry Lim of the state of Maori in what is today Syria created in Icehouse which never before had any King built such a house would have been a large insulated structure intended to preserve ice which would have been collected either in Winter or from high mountains but Mario would have been an extraordinary place to build such a house the average low temperature in that part of the Middle East is well above freezing even in Winter and there are only an average of around 22 days of precipitation a year there would seem to have not been a lot of ice to preserve but this building although it wasn't described in the tablet almost certainly had an extraordinary ability to produce ice even when the ambient temperature was above freezing it was most likely what people in Iran called a yakchal these cone-shaped structures are made of a special water resistant mortar there's a general clean Technica explains this Dome structures itself often protected by external sun walls it's made of a thick at least two meter heat resistant and water impenetrable mortar made of clay sand egg whites lime Ash and goat hair in specific quantities and processed in a specific way known as sarouj the structures use evaporative cooling now they're built so that cool air is funneled to a Subterranean chamber fed by an aqueduct and warm air is channeled upwards through a chimney the temperature is cooled using the evaporative effect that is the cooling effect caused by the evaporation of water during evaporation to energetic molecules leave the liquid phase which lowers the average energy of the remaining liquid molecules the process works best in arid climates and is the same process used to cool air in a modern swamp cooler clear Technica expounds depending on the specific design utilized and the needs of the specific region and application in question such buildings can feature internal temperatures below freezing even during the height of Summer the general ancient Origins describes their use in addition to storing drinking water the yuck Chow was also used to keep food such as fruit dairy products and probably meat cool so that it would last longer but yuktal isn't actually necessary in order to make ice in the desert ice can also be made using a process called radiative cooling explained in Planck's law the process comes from the fact that all physical bodies emit electromagnetic radiation on a clear night such radiation could proceed directly into space removing energy from water even in the desert even with ambient temperatures above freezing water could be placed in a shallow insulated pool on a clear night and the surface would freeze the website field study of the world describes the process a clear night sky has a very low temperature and on clear nights surfaces facing the sky radiate heat into the sky in this way the temperature of the water in the pool could drop below the temperature of the air and on cold nights it would drop below zero degrees Celsius thus creating ice a 2018 article in real clear science describes the potential of the process on dry cloudless Desert Nights with the cold vastness of space laid bare above the surface of the Earth heat can readily radiate from substances like water escaping from the atmosphere to space itself where temperatures are roughly 450 degrees below zero fahrenheit so much heat can radiate from water that ice can form at ambient temperatures as high as 41 degrees Fahrenheit it's unclear how widespread the practice was but the second Century A.D Greek writer athenaeus described Egyptians using the process placing shallow Earth and bowls of water on top of houses at night in their book ancient inventions a lively and fascinating look at the genuine wonders of the past history of Peter James and archaeologist Nick Thorpe note that Europeans visiting India in the 18th century describe a similar process cello Potter vessels containing water were lined up in rows covered with straw or sugar cane stalks and exposed to Drass the evaporation cooled the water and was even known to produce small quantities of ice The Traveler suggested that the processes existed since ancient times and Thorpe also note that there is literary evidence of a similar process being used in Estonia in the 8th Century A.D and while the ancient ability to create ice in the desert without a machine or electricity is amazing in fact the process only creates thin layers of ice and then only when the conditions are perfect ice would have been an extremely rare commodity in the ancient Middle East for the most part the way that you got ice in ancient cultures was to collect it in winter or from high altitudes like on top of mountains and to preserve it James and Thorpe explained that time-honored Customs for the maintenance of houses meant for preserving ice are described under the Chinese Tang Dynasty in the 7th Century A.D and the oldest remains of an ice house in China were built in the 7th Century BC the Greeks also used ice houses starting at least with Alexander the Great in the 4th Century BC whom ethania says dug 30 refrigerated pits which he filled with snow covered with bows the snow will last a long time Alexander possibly learned the practice in India moreover they note that Athenians were using Pottery vessels for the purpose of cooling wine as early as the 6th Century BC the Romans were also James and Thorpe argue fond of ice the ancient Romans were as fond of putting ice in their drinks as we are today in the time of the early Empire no banquet would have been complete without the provision of lavish quantities of ice or snow for guests to sprinkle in their wine goblets but they continue for all their love of chilled drinks food and even baths there is no evidence that the Greeks or Romans discovered any method of making ice from scratch rather the two explain snow was carried down from mountains on Donkey trains and stored in deep pits covered with straw in Roman society the snow would be sold directly at places called snow shops and James and Thornton note the weight of the snow would press the bottom layer into ice which was sold at a higher rate James and Thorpe also note that various Greek and Roman philosophers such as Seneca and Pliny the Younger objected to the use of snow and chilled drinks as a sign of decadence Hippocrates and other Physicians also saw it as a health hazard and of course it's quite possible that the snow contained pollutants that could have spread illness while Roman ice houses disappeared with the Empire the methods for using ice did not change much in the medieval period snow and ice were collected during winter or from mountains and transported but the cost meant that other processes for preservation of food such as salting were more commonly used still ice was kept in ice houses the website history of refrigeration notes that they were introduced to Britain around 1660 and the design came with Travelers who had seen similar buildings in Italy they were commonly bricklined Dome structures with most of their volume underground they were also rounded at the bottom to hold melted ice ice outside of season still would have been a rare and expensive commodity February 2013 article in the Atlantic explains but with few exceptions ice was reserved for the rich and the ancient markets were relatively Regional Smithsonian Magazine defines the pre-ice age for Millennia people in the earth's warmer regions had needed to drink milk when it was drawn from the cow eat fruits and vegetables just as they ripened and Manju endure warm wine the wild west Lawman and journalist Bat Masterson famously quipped there are many in this old world of ours who hold that things break out about even for all of us I have observed for example that we all get the same amount of ice the rich get it in the summertime and the poor get it in winter the real change in the use of ice didn't come until the 19th century and an enterprising American named Frederick Tudor a man who the Atlantic notes believed that cutting ice from Massachusetts lakes and shipping it across the world to the tropics would make him inevitably and unavoidably Rich tutor's idea was to cut ice in Frozen New England and ship it to warmer regions it was an interesting plan ships headed from the U.S to the Caribbean were often empty heading there to pick up cargo so Transportation was cheap and demand was high he started shipping ice in 1806 and had to learn from experimentation methods of packing the ice with sawdust that would preserve large amounts over the course of the voyage he had a setback when it was swindled by a business partner but by the 1820s Tudor was commonly called the Ice King of Boston aided by one of his former Nathaniel Wyeth whose inventions including the horse-drawn ice plow made the collection of ice easier in 1833 Tudor started shipping ice from New England to India Tudor's Drive created a global market for ice I was shipped from the US to England in the early 19th century although British merchants quickly figured out that it was cheaper to ship from Norway all over the world ice has been collected in the cold North and shipped to Growing markets in the warm south the Atlantic continues the ability to preserve perishables with ice also meant that food could be sold in the distant markets of America's fast-growing cities ice was becoming integral to the daily life and newspapers followed the ice trade closely unseasonably warm Winters prompted warnings of ice famines and Ice Harvesters would sail to the Arctic and make up the shortfall by chopping up icebergs but in the face of the growing ice cutting industry the science of the Industrial Age was catching up with Mother Nature the website thoughtco writes the first known artificial form of refrigeration was demonstrated by William Cohen the University of Glasgow in 1748. Cohen's invention though ingenious was not used for any practical purpose a refrigeration machine capable of making ice was described by American inventor Oliver Evans in 1805 but never built the prolific inventor Jacob Perkins patented an apparatus and means for producing ice ending cooling fluids in England in 1834. but it was the physician John gory who chilled Mr rosen's Champaign who first demonstrated the capability of mechanical ice making to the public gory had built a machine based on the principles created by Evans his interest came as a physician he had learned that cooling rooms helped sufferers of yellow fever he had used convection across chilled ice as a means of air conditioning or cooling Wards full of feverish patients and built his machine to serve the need for ice which being shipped from New England ice houses was expensive in Florida in the summer in 1845 gory left medicine to focus on his ideas for refrigeration and earned the first U.S patent for an ice making machine in 1851 his original design is held in the Smithsonian institution but he was unable to find Capital and eventually died broke and forgotten one reason was Frederick Tudor gorey's machine was ridiculed in the Press with some religious leaders suggesting that it was unnatural when his main financial backer died in 1851 and amid the bad press gory was unable to find more backers so sodium magazine explains that gory suspected that Frederick Tudor had spearheaded a smear campaign against him in his invention there were many inventions and Innovations for the making of ice over the course of the 19th century but for the most part manufacturing ice was still more expensive and more difficult than collecting and storing Natural Ice and manufactured ice really only started to dominate those sorts of places where it was too expensive to import Natural Ice for example a man named James Harrison was able to create a successful industrial ice business in the Victoria province of Australia in the 1850s where the only other way to get ice was to have it shipped from the United States or Norway an expensive proposition the Minnesota Sun sailor newspaper noted last February that as late as 1914 U.S markets used some 24 million tons of manufactured ice but 26 million tons of Natural Ice part of the issue was that until the 1930s ice making machines used toxic chemicals with leaks often resulting in deaths in the 1920s General Motors in Dupont conducted Research into a low toxicity alternative producing freon in 1930. efforts under the Roosevelt administration in the 1930s brought electricity to Rural America and with it electric refrigerators still the commercial ice cutting trade survived through the second world war and Natural Ice was imported to the United Kingdom from the United States until 1950 today of course people in almost every place in the world can get ice out of the refrigerator according to season PR the global ice maker Market in 2019 with some five billion dollars with growth largely driven by the expansion of fast food chains throughout the world so it seems as long as energy supplies last that people were able to to enjoy their drinks cold even in the middle of summer [Music] well it's spring at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere the flowers are in bloom especially of course the flower that nobody seems to want the dandelion to many of us it's the definition of OE we mow the things over they come back we spend millions of dollars on weed killer we just can't get rid of them making up the genus teracticum in the sunflower family they are among the most populous and widespread plants on Earth especially the thing that we call the common dandelion which is found commonly on six continents everything about Antarctica and in all 50 U.S states but aside from trying to eradicate the things we don't put a lot of thought into dandelions and exactly how it came that they would populate the entire Earth the history of the common dandelion and its inextricable connection to human civilization is history that deserves to be remembered as a species dandelions are believed to have evolved about 30 million years ago in Eurasia spread widely during interglacial periods when receding glaciers left wet disturbed land in their wake dandelions Thrive especially in Disturbed habitats where they easily colonize the cleared space with limited competition before humans started farming dandelions and plants like it were easily foraged and provided necessary nutrients all parts of the plant are edible the leaves have been traditionally eaten raw or boiled and are used to make dandelion teas the flowers themselves are described as sweet although the plants become more bitter as it grows older and thus the best tasting dandelions are picked in Spring The Roots which are often thick and go deep into the ground can be peeled and eaten like other Roots such as carrots or ground and made tuned to a kind of coffee the relationship between humans and dandelions goes deep into prehistory the taxonomy of the dandelion is rather complex but the species that most people would recognize across the world is direct official while it isn't clear exactly when humans began eating them dandelions were a well-established part of diets all over the ancient world they were eaten by the ancient Greeks the Romans the Egyptians the Greeks still eat them today in a dish that's called radicchia it is even mentioned in Greek myth John Evelyn published the esataria discourse on salads in 1699 an entity says of dandelions it was from this homely salad that The Good Wife hakate fed Theseus the Slayer of the Minotaur the legend says that the goddess hekate fed the hero Theseus dandelions for 30 days in order to give him the strength to defeat the bullheaded Beast anyone has ever tried to keep a weed-free law and those that dandelions grow and reproduce very quickly this is partly because dandelions do not need to be pollinated in order to reproduce instead they reproduce asexually and each seed is a clone of the parent dandelions produce between 54 and 172 seeds per head and a single plant can produce more than 5 000 seeds in a year additionally a dandelion plant can live up to 13 years and it will regrow if any part of the Taproot survives this helps tweaks by two historical facts about the dandelion their abundance in hardiness made them especially valuable as forage because they're growing large numbers without cultivation second these plants would traditionally follow human settlement because human camps and later human cities created large amounts of disturbed ground as land was broken for farming or forests were cut down from materials the plant is also believed a bed is used as a folk medicine well into prehistory especially in China the first written record of its uses of medicine comes from 10th Century Arabic texts where writers refer to it as a kind of Endive called tarakshakun which means bitter herb and from which the scientific name taraxicum is thought by some to have been derived others suggest it came from the Greek taraxos meaning disorder and akkos meaning remedy in the 13th century dandelions were being used as a medicine by the Welsh a continent away from Arabia or China the common name dandelion is a Corruption of the French Dante de Leon from the Latin dance leonis or tooth of the lion many other languages also called a lion's tooth it isn't clear why this name became popular but historians have suggested that the serrated leaves resemble teeth or that the familiar yellow flower looks like a lion's mane or as one clever 15th century surgeon said the name came from the way that the plant was effective as a lion's tooth in combating certain diseases medicinally the plant has been used for a wide variety of purposes it's been used as a diuretic as a digestion Aid it's anti-inflammatory and is medicine to treat kidney and liver disease the white latex that comes from the hollow stem has been used as a folk remedy for warts the plant is remarkably nutritious high in vitamins a c and k and also potassium iron and zinc it's used by Normans Anglo-Saxon tribes in medieval Europe to prevent or treat scurvy it was mentioned in Chinese herbals as early as the 7th century it's recognized medicinal benefits have been enshrined in its scientific name the term aficional referring to apothecaries was reserved only for herbs and plants that had a long history of being therapeutic these are more than folk remedies modern studies have identified viable medicinal properties of the plant including that the flower has anti-inflammatory benefits by the Middle Ages the plant was known and used by many cultures in Africa and Eurasia European peasants included it frequently in their Gardens and used it to make dandelion wine salads and tea it's also often included in the ubiquitous herb gardens of monasteries and Lords a book describing medicinal properties of herbs by Elizabeth Blackwell in the mid-18th century mentioned dandelions where much eaten as a salad in the spring while there are several species of dandelion native to North America it wasn't until Europeans arrived that tea aficional reached American Shores the plant may have been bought deliberately by the Puritans as a food or medicinal crop on the Mayflower in 1620. dandelions traveled almost everywhere humans did Crossing oceans with the Vikings to Greenland with the French and Spanish to Canada and South America and even to Australia the seeds also travel by accident along with shipments of other European grasses and cultivates once in place the aggressive plant has become naturalized across the world while not usually considered invasive across most of the world tea officionality is an introduced species and it followed humans west across the North American continent with enterprising homesteaders disturb land for crops and homes the plant spread quickly wherever its seeds landed and like early humans and European peasants Native Americans quickly recognized the plant's uses the Ojibwa and Iroquois peoples of the Northeast use it for a variety of purposes including as a fever reducer and anti-inflammatory and the alute Shoshone Cherokee Paiute apacheon Kiowa peoples were all known to be familiar with the plant as a medicine or food by the 20th century the dandelion was well known throughout most of the world and every continent except Antarctica now is by far the most widespread and is possibly the most recognizable plant on the planet so why are dandelions now reviled as obnoxious weed their fall from Human Grace was tied to the rise of the front lawn historians trace the beginning of lawn culture to 17th century England was then that the well-trimmed flat carpet of grass began to be displayed to say performance of wealth as only the rich could afford for their land to be unproductive in the late 18th century the growing availability of grass seed in the U.S allowed American Elites to make their own lawns Thomas Jefferson was among the first to see the new European fashion and tried to emulate it at Monticello by the 20th century Lawns had become a part of the cultural consciousness of the American dream in The Great Gatsby Nick Carraway narrates that we both looked at the grass there's a sharp line where my ragged lawn ended and the darker well-kept expanse of his began before the Civil War Lawns were still in common but the growing production of lawn care magazines helped to spread the idea in the post-war years industrialization and the growth of the middle class is what ultimately gave rise to the ubiquitous front Lawns of today after World War II the government helped to finance low-cost mortgages and Builders often included lawns in these blue collar and suburban homes to mimic upper-class lifestyles as long became ubiquitous the dandelion change from a sometimes useful but common plant into a menace ruining the uniformity of Lawns from coast to coast in 1944 the weed killer known as 2 4-D was discovered almost simultaneously by several different groups in the U.S and United Kingdom working under wartime secrecy laws making it unclear who discovered it first in 1945 the American Chemical Paint Company introduced we done which killed broadleaf plants but not grasses the wheat killer saved Millions from agriculture who could now clear the fields of some weeds with much less work the things that made dandelions desirable soon became problems dandelions spread widely and easily especially in Disturbed or shallow rooted spaces such as lawns The Tap Root grows so thick and deep that the Chinese called it an earth nail The Taproom can grow up to 15 feet deep in ideal conditions other plants and medications made the mild dandelion mostly Obsolete and now it remains mostly in the places that people just don't want it but even today it isn't universally despised during World War II the Empire of Japan controlled most of the world's rubber production one possible solution appeared in the Kazakh dandelion which was cultivated in the United States Europe and the Soviet Union is an emergency supply of rubber to some success though never in large quantities today unstable rubber prices damaging fungus and worries about growth have led to efforts to economize the Keswick dandelion as a source of rubber and to some the future looks promising mind you I'm not suggesting that you eat your front yard I'm the history guy not a chef or a dietitian but if you want to try dandelion scientists remind you don't eat them out of your yard if you've been using pesticides or fertilizers and be careful of dandelions that grow inside of Roads because those also can collect pollution if you'll want to try the dandelion make sure that you wash them well some people might have food allergies so you might try a little bit at a time and while the entire plant is edible you might want to avoid the stems which exude a waxy substance which can cause nausea for some people the history of dandelions is deeply intertwined with humans like so many other animals and plants they provided food and medicine for generations of ancient humans and spread into specifically human created biomes today many people's relationship to the plant is one of antagonism but the naturalized plant is a testament to the ways that humans have changed the Ecology of the planet sometimes in unexpected ways it also illustrates changing historical attitudes that deeply impact our modern understandings of social realities it is a supreme irony that we now wage war against a plant that we once brought with us as a staple food and as a reminder of home and there are some people who want to rehabilitate the reputation of the dandelion and remind us of the day that it was used as food there people even celebrate the dandelion this year the town of Vineland New Jersey will have its 44th annual dandelion Festival celebrating the towns agrarian history and in Japan there's a dandelion appreciation society which is breeding dandelions in multiple colors just just for its beauty so you'll maybe in the future the reputation will change we'll go back to eating dandelions or maybe they will remain just as weeds and as to the war I can tell you that my experience in my life suggests that dandelions might well outlive Humanity but in any case they will always be a part of human history I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short Snippets of Forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that Thumbs Up Button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 16,444

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy

Id: HgCfcCt2Y4w

Length: 51min 45sec (3105 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 19 2023