Ice Harvest at Pocono Manor 1919 Prelinger Archive

more at http://quickfound.net/

Silent.

Originally a public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cutting

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Ice cutting is a winter task of collecting surface ice from lakes and rivers for storage in ice houses and use or sale as a cooling method. Rare today, it was common before the era of widespread mechanical refrigeration and air conditioning technology. The work was done as a winter chore by many farmers and as a winter occupation by icemen. Kept insulated, the ice was preserved for cold food storage during warm weather, either on the farm or for delivery to residential and commercial customers with ice boxes. A large ice trade existed in the 19th and early 20th centuries, until mechanical refrigeration displaced it.

Ice harvesting generally involved waiting until approximately a foot of ice had built up on the water surface in the winter. The ice would then be cut with either a handsaw or a powered saw blade into long continuous strips and then cut into large individual blocks for transport by wagon back to the ice house. Because snow on top of the ice slows freezing, it could be scraped off and piled in windrows. Alternatively, if the temperature is cold enough, a snowy surface could be flooded to produce a thicker layer of ice. A large operation would have a crew of 75 and cut 1500 tons daily. In the 1880s, New York City had over 1500 ice delivery wagons and Americans consumed over 5 million tons of ice annually.

Ice cutting is still in use today for ice and snow sculpture events. A swing saw is used to get ice out of a river for the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival each year. A swing saw is also used to cut ice out from the frozen surface of the Songhua River, China. Many ice sculptures are made from the ice harvested this way. In some countries at high latitudes, even ice hotels and ice palaces are made.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocono_Manor,_Pennsylvania

Pocono Manor is an unincorporated community in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, United States, located at approximately latitude 41.1 and longitude -75.359, at an elevation of 1,706 feet, on Pennsylvania Route 314 east of Pocono Summit and west of Swiftwater. It was the location of a resort and golf course called The Inn at Pocono Manor, with a Donald Ross-designed golf course, site of the Pocono Northeast Classic; and Pocono Manor Historic District. Pocono Manor Inn was burned down on November 2, 2019. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.