The Ice Cream Centennial: Baltimore’s Coolest History
Post by Exhibitions Intern Emilia Halvorsen. To read more posts by and about interns click HERE.
As an exhibitions intern, much of my time here at the JMM has been spent digging through artifacts on PastPerfect, the digital database of the museum’s collections. While usually my searches are geared towards certain subjects, often I’ll come across unrelated items of interest. One such instance was coming across a collection of fabulous photographs celebrating the Ice Cream Centennial in Baltimore. As a hardcore ice cream lover (as well as a professional scooper) I needed to know more about this special celebration- and learned that Baltimore, believe it or not, is the birthplace of commercial ice cream production!
The hero behind this phenomenon was a Baltimore milkman named Jacob Fussell, a Quaker born in Hartford County. Fussell found that unlike milk, cream had a more unpredictable supply and demand, often leaving him with a surplus of the stuff. So he decided that, instead of disposing of the leftover cream as he’d been doing, he’d rather turn the cream into more profit by turning it into a new product: ice cream!
And so in 1851 Fussell opened the first commercial ice cream factory in Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania, shipping the sweet stuff to Baltimore via train. He became so successful that he opened more factories. The mass production lead to a cut in costs, making ice cream more easily affordable to the lower classes and establishing its popularity across class lines.
One hundred years later, and ice cream had become not just popular but beloved. A huge celebration was held to celebrate the anniversary, featuring a speech by Governor Theodore McKeldin, the unveiling of a plaque honoring Fussell, and ten thousand free cups of ice cream!!
As a person with a passion for ice cream, I am happy to know that its wholesaling got the party it deserved, and hope that come 2051, the bicentennial will be celebrated with just as much fervor- and, of course, free ice cream!
Sources:
Funderburg, Anne Cooper. Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla: A History of American Ice Cream. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State U Popular, 1995. Print.
“Ice Cream Centennial Observed in Baltimore.” Reading Eagle 15 June 1951: 19. Print.
Thomas, Robert Bailey. “The History of Ice Cream.” The Old Farmer’s Almanac 2004. Boston: Jenks, Palmer, 1984. N. pag. Print.
All photos courtesy of the JMM.