Ice Cream Inventions: How the Chill Happened

This post is by Georgette Green, Business Reference and Research Specialist in the Science & Business Reading Room.  

Today is National Ice Cream Day, a special day to celebrate a delicious and refreshing dessert, which is loved by many and available in thousands of flavors. Ice cream can be enjoyed in a variety of forms, including gelato, custard, soft serve, and frozen yogurt. Two individuals who played a significant role in the development of ice cream in the United States were Nancy M. Johnson and Augustus Jackson.

Nancy M. Johnson was a housewife who became a successful inventor. She created the first hand-cranked ice cream maker in the United States, which earned her a patent for an “Artificial Freezer” on September 9, 1843. Johnson’s invention allowed ice cream to last 30 minutes, which was particularly useful when there was no electricity or refrigerator.

Augustus Jackson, also known as “Father Ice Cream,” was an African American ice cream maker and confectioner from Philadelphia, PA. In the 1820s, he worked in the White House as a chef while James Monroe was president. After leaving the White House, he started his own catering business. Jackson invented a method for controlling the freezing of custard and developed various ice cream flavors, which he sold in tin cans. He later became a distributor for ice cream parlors.

If you would like to learn about the history of ice cream, I’ve selected books from our online catalog that might be of particular interest. These books contain recipes and historical information about Nancy M. Johnson and Augustus Jackson and their contributions to the development of ice cream:

• Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women. This book features women inventors and includes Nancy M. Johnson in a timeline of inventors from the 1800-1860s.
• Encyclopedia of Kitchen History. The section Popularity In The New World provides some detail on how the mechanism of Nancy M. Johnson’s “artificial freezer” works.
• 1001 Inventions that Changed the World. The entry “Ice-cream Maker (1843)” covers Nancy Johnson’s invention.
• Ice Cream Man: How Augustus Jackson Made a Sweet Treat Better. This is a children’s book about Father Ice Cream, Augustus Jackson
• The President’s Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, From the Washingtons to the Obamas. Chapter Four, “Semisweet,” includes information about Augustus Jackson’s time as a chef in the White House.
• The Book of Ice-Cream. This book describes the machinery used to produce ice cream in the 1900s.
• All-American Desserts: 400 Star-Spangled, Razzle-Dazzle Recipes for America’s Best Loved Desserts. This book contains 400 dessert recipes using ice cream.

Ice cream is a dessert that will always remain a favorite. If you want to learn more about ice cream, check out our guide, We Scream for Ice Cream. If you’re interested in the food preferences of U.S. presidents, you can check out Presidential Food: A Resource Guide.  And if you’d like to find information on other business innovators, see our series, This Month in Business History.

Want to read more posts on Business and Science topics? Then subscribe to Inside Adams — it’s free!