Before everyone had electric refrigerators, ice was delivered by icemen who travelled regular routes with trucks and earlier with horse-drawn wagons. In order to avoid two trips to the customer's door, each home was provided with a card to put in the window. The card indicated how much ice was needed that day and the iceman could see from the curb how much he should bring.

The fine print on the card you see at the right says:

 

The customer had a choice of placing the card with 10, 20, 30 or 40 pounds on the top to signal how much ice was needed. The card is eleven inches square. (It is too big to fit in my scanner so I had to splice two images together and the colors do not agree.  In real life it is not green on the corners. I think I need a new scanner.)

I have not been able to date it yet. However, E. Westover Avenue in Philadelphia does not seem to exist any more. I haven't tried to phone 279 but I'm sure it wouldn't work.

I have searched the internet for references to these ice cards and have found the following:
 

• Our Pioneers' Way of Life , from Norris M. Taylor, Jr., talks about ice cards in The Ice Box - and the Ice Man.
• Childhood Memories of a Girl Called Ellen Louise Is from an autobiography of Ellen Louise Hamar Doubek. Her chapter on Home Deliveries begins with a discussion of ice delivery and the ice card.
• These Were the Good Old Days  is a memoir by Bill Kraft. He grew up in in the Irvington area of West Baltimore . He describes the "10 x 10 card placed in the window" to tell the iceman how much to deliver.
• The Ice Man Cometh  is a from a weekly newspaper column, The Back Fence, written by John Watson  in the Cleburne Eagle News in Texas. He describes the ice card as well as other aspects of ice delivery.
• Delivery Men and Peddlars Remembered is from the Berea (Ohio) Historical Society. They include a picture of an ice card and of a horse-drawn ice delivery wagon.
• The Thompson/Haas Family describes how John Thompson delivered ice in Baltimore in the early twentieth century. His son, Harry Leroy Thompson, worked with him. The family describe the ice cards put in the windows.

(Revised 12 January, 2002)