A Cool Invention

Florence Parpart sighed as she walked to the front of her house to pick up a block of ice to put in her family’s ice box. To keep food cold in the early 1900’s most homes in America used an icebox - a box with a block of ice in it that would keep the food cold. Florence’s house was no exception, but Florence wasn’t happy with her ice box. Everyday she needed to put in a new ice block. The ice would melt, leaving behind a messy pool of water for her to clean. She couldn’t have something cool whenever she wanted to because she needed to wait for the ice delivery man to bring her a block of ice for her ice box. If she didn’t get her ice, she wouldn’t get her ice cream! Florence needed a better way to keep food cool, so she decided to make one herself.

Florence didn’t come from a family of inventors. In January 1873, German immigrants Wilheima and Edward Papart welcomed their daughter into their home in New York City. Edward was a sugar refinery worker, and Wilheima took care of their home. Inventing and engineering wasn’t something that ran in Florence’s blood, but her parents encouraged her to try new things. Florence was trained as a stenographer, and she worked in the Eastern Sanitary Company. She worked hard, and went on to become the company’s secretary. While working there, she met and married Hiram Layman, a technician.

However, Florence had some prior experience figuring out solutions to problems that impacted the women of her times. In 1900 she invented and patented an improved street sweeper with a cover that solved the problem of dust being released into the air. It was more automated, reducing the manual effort required.

Now Florence began brainstorming solutions to her icebox problem. Before the ice box, people used cold cellars and ice houses to keep food cold. In regions where ice and snow were not available, people attempted to keep food cool in underground storages. During Florence’s time, an icebox was the popular choice.

She studied designs from past innovations to refrigeration. Other inventors before her had used methods like vapor compression to improve the icebox. However, some of the designs used unsafe liquid chemicals that would leak, making it dangerous for homes. Florence knew she wouldn’t want to have something like that in her house, so she thought about liquids that were safer. Water!, she thought excitedly. Electricity was a recent technology. Maybe she could use electricity to keep the water cold?

She wasn’t sure her idea would work. She needed a prototype. Florence didn’t know much about electrifying objects, so she asked her husband Hiram to help her. Hiram and Florence worked tirelessly on the prototype. They made improvements and kept testing it to see if their ideas would work.

Finally, they had a working product. It had taken lots of building, testing, and rebuilding, but they had done it. They stood and admired their work. It was a better refrigerator! Florence’s final design was to circulate cold water through the refrigerator using electricity. The cold water moving through the fridge kept the food inside fresh and cool. To protect their idea they filed a patent with Florence and Hiram as co-inventors.

Florence was successful in selling the electric refrigerator to companies across America. She and Hiram supervised the selling and making of commercial refrigerators as well. When Florence died in 1930, her patented refrigerator design was popular all across the country.

Although Florence Parpart did not get due credit for her contribution, she played an important role in the evolution of food refrigeration. So when people open their refrigerator to get some ice cream they should remember Florence Parpart and her “cool” invention!