The Man Who Sold 'Winter'

In the early nineteenth century, the idea of shipping ice to the tropics sounded ridiculous. After all, who would pay for something that melted before it arrived?

In this episode of History Shorts, we tell the remarkable story of Frederic Tudor, the ambitious Boston merchant who refused to believe the impossible. After early shipments ended in disaster and repeated business failures landed him in debtor's prison, Tudor reinvented his enterprise with ingenious solutions—from insulating cargo with sawdust to building icehouses in tropical ports. Then he came up with a brilliant marketing strategy: give ice away to ba...