Refrigerators = Happiness

Left: General Electric Monitor Top refrigerator, 1930s. Top right: Frozen concentrated orange juice cans, 1960s. Bottom right: Ice cube tray, 1930s.  

In the 1930s, Americans began to think differently about what they ate and how they spent their time. Increasingly, they gave up their unreliable iceboxes for newly affordable electric refrigerators. By the 1960s, they were buying ever-larger models with spacious freezers.

Explore refrigeration objects through primary source materials:

Before the refrigerator got its hum

Every minute counts!

What's cooking?

Hunger in a land of plenty

An innovation in shopping!

Sparkling delights

VIDEO: See how refrigerators were portrayed in commercials, movies, and television in these Object Project + History Channel videos.