Category: Products

In Home Refrigeration

When Roscoe Bartlett was born, his mother had to keep food in a wooden ice box. The ice was cut from ponds in the winter, and then stored by the ice company and delivered to the home when it was needed. The melting ice kept food cold. Only about half of America could even afford an ice box. The rest just went without cold food in the summer months. No, the Bartletts did not have a refrigerator; nobody did.

In 1927, General Electric introduce the "Monitor-Top" refrigerator, the first refrigerator to gain widespread use in the home. GE sold a million units. The refrigerator used hazardous gases and a huge circular compressor to keep food cold. It didn't look like much, but it kept food cold. Imagine a Budweiser commercial where the Clydesdales are delivering large blocks of melting ice to keep your Bud Light cold. Doesn't have quite the same appeal does it?

Hostess Twinkies

Few foods have become so intertwined with society as Hostess Twinkies. When Jim Dewar first invented the Twinkie in 1930, it was filled with banana cream, not vanilla cream. Now you can buy both, but the vanilla creme filled cake is the most popular. And yes, it is a cake, despite all those rumors. But today, the term "Twinkies" can refer to so much more.

Asians now call other Asians 'Twinkies" if they are yellow on the outside and white on the inside. Gay men refer to "Twinkies" to describe slender young men with no body hair. In criminal law, a "Twinkie Defense" is a spurious claim that some unrelated factor excuses the defendant's behavior. And of course, broadcasters often refer to the Minnesota Twins as the "Twinkies".

Penicillin

Little Roscoe Bartlett was approaching two years old when a Scottish scientist named Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. By 1931, he concluded that the stuff couldn't last long enough in the human body to do any good, so he stopped studying it. It wasn't until 1942 that a single patient was successfully treated for streptococcal septicemia, and it took half of the US supply of penicillin to do it. A year later, scientists found that a moldy cantaloupe in Peoria, Illinois contained the best penicillin in the world. After that, millions of doses were able to save countless American lives in World War II.

The Oxford English Dictionary

Believe it or not, the Oxford English Dictionary was not completed until five years after Roscoe Bartlett was born. The first volume, starting with A, was published in 1888, and by the time they got to the last volume in 1928, they decided the language had changed so much that they needed to issue a supplement. It wasn't until 1933 that the entire dictionary was published as 13 volumes, counting the supplement. Today, the Oxford English Dictionary consists of 20 volumes, including 291,500 entries on 21,730 pages.

Electric Razors

Even before Roscoe Bartlett was born, Jacob Schick was dreaming of the electric razor. It seems that Col. Schick was seeking his fortune as a gold miner in Alaska when he slipped and sprained his ankle. Forced to remain in his camp for several months in 40 below zero temperatures, Jacob was probably inspired by two factors. First, his shaving cream was frozen solid, and second, he had a lot of time on his hands. And so he invented a dry electric razor that was as long as your arm. It wasn't real practical and so no one was willing to manufacture it. Still, he persisted, and in 1927 he marketed the first electric razor. It was not an immediate success, however, and his family had to mortgage their home to keep the company going. It was not until 1931 when Schick produced an electric razor that you could hold in the palm of your hand that was successful. Jacob Schick died 71 years ago.