July May be National Ice Cream Month, but Ice Cream is a Year-Round Treat

July is National Ice Cream Month and each year the 3rd Sunday is designated as National Ice Cream Day. We have published posts about it before – I wrote one that featured an ad from 1920 and Jennifer Harbster wrote another. This year, I decided to revisit this topic and found a fun article from 1908 about how much ice cream Washington, D.C. was supposed to have consumed. More than that, it is the advertisements that catch my attention.  I really enjoy seeing ads from local companies like Polar, Weber, and Colonial as well as ads for particular flavors like peach and strawberry.  But this two page advertisement from 1912 really stood out. Not only could it help someone learn their ABCs, but you can find out about the company.

For anyone wanting to research the business of ice cream, Kelsey Diemand, our former Librarian-in-Residence, created We Scream for Ice Cream: An Industry Guide in 2019. The Library collections also include a number of books on the history of this cold treat, as well as the stories behind some individual ice cream parlors and brands; current and past industry perspectives; directories, annual yearbooks; and quite a bit of material from other countries, including Italy and the Netherlands.  There are also recipes for making ice creams, treats using ice cream, and other recipes.  If you want to look at some wonderful images, search ice cream on the Library of Congress page. There are a number of them from the John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008).

If you are still looking for fun backgrounds for video conferencing this summer, see our Free to Use and Reuse collection that includes images featuring this yummy treat.

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