When Congress passed the Volstead Act in 1920, banning the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States, the law nearly wiped out the alcohol industry. But it did help give the nascent ice cream industry a big boost.
Between 1919 and 1929, federal tax revenue from distilled spirits fell from $ 365 million to less than $ 13 million, according to the US Treasury Department. The few breweries that survived until the end of Prohibition in 1933 did so by pivoting – producing everything from ceramics and farm equipment to American cheese, candy, and malt syrup. Iconic breweries such as Anheuser-Busch and Yuengling have partly turned to the production of ice cream.
“While men looked for alternatives to having a drink at the local saloon, many ate ice cream more often,” wrote Anne Cooper Funderburg, author of Chocolate, Strawberry and Vanilla: A History of American Ice Creamdriving an estimated 40 percent growth in consumption between 1920 and 1929. A song from a Pacific Ice Cream Manufacturers Convention song in 1920 stated, “Gone are the days when the father was a souse,” and now, instead of beer, he brings home a brick of ice.
The Anti-Saloon League, the most powerful lobby for Prohibition, has been a strong supporter of the dairy industry, trying to take credit for the growth of the ice cream market. “It is believed that this sharp increase in ice cream consumption is due in large part to the fact that men eager for stimulants are readily turning to this refreshing and appetizing food,” the organization’s directory reported in 1921. “More there is ice cream ”. which is used, the better it is for consumers and milk producers. ”
Other factors driving the ice cream boom included the expansion of soda fountains, improved refrigeration methods, and innovations in ice cream production. The latter two, in particular, have helped bring frozen desserts to a national market, with the competitive development of new single-serve products such as the Chocolate Coated Ice Cream Bar, the Popsicle, and the Ice Cream-Filled Dixie Cup.
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Soda fountains
A bartender serving soda to customers, c. 1920.
George Rinhart / Corbis / Getty Images
As sugary drinks became America’s preferred alcohol substitute in the 1920s, companies like Coca-Cola became behemoths, and soda fountains replaced saloons as the place where people gathered to. socialize in public. In 1922, The New York Times estimated that the United States had more than 100,000 soda fountains – most of which were located in drugstores – with sales of $ 1 billion. But ice cream played a key supporting role for soda, as fountain mixologists, much like saloon bartenders, concocted drinks that mixed the two – like the Coke float. Some got more creative: The owners of a soda fountain in Aspen, Colo., Made Aspen Crud, a bourbon-soaked ice cream cocktail, taking advantage of laws that allowed drugstores to sell alcohol at for medicinal purposes.
Mass production of ice cream
A Man Selling Frozen Treats at a Street Stall, c. 1922.
Hulton Archives / Getty Images
The skyrocketing popularity of ice cream during Prohibition coincided with the development of more efficient means of refrigeration both in soda fountains and in private homes, as well as with less labor-intensive methods- work to make ice cream. Countertop freezers allowed busy soda fountain operators to store large amounts of ice cream, but the manufacturing process using a manual crank could be a daunting task. In 1926, Clarence Vogt, an inventor from Louisville, Kentucky, made the mass production of ice cream on an industrial scale possible by creating the first commercially successful continuous process freezer. Vogt’s machine, which allowed ingredients to be poured from one end of the machine and ice cream to come out on the other end, led to “true mass marketing” of ice cream and the proliferation of ice cream. of the boom that began with the onset of Prohibition, according to Diana Rosen, the author of The companion of the ice cream lover.
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Put a stick in it
During the 1920s, several entrepreneurs were developing their own innovations to help make standardized frozen treats that are less messy and more portable, allowing them to be sold in volume at amusement parks, boardwalks and other large public places. In January 1922, an Iowa schoolteacher by the name of Christian Nelson patented Eskimo Pie, a single-serve vanilla ice cream bar covered in a thin chocolate shell. Harry Burt, a Chicago-based confectioner, became the first to put a stick in such chocolate-coated ice cream treats with the Good Humor bar, patenting his process and machines in 1923. Burt revolutionized the industry by launching a fleet of refrigerated trucks driven by “Good Humor men” dressed in bright white distributing bars, cones and cups directly to neighborhoods across the country.
In 1923, Dixie Cups hit the market, offering a 2.5-ounce serving of two flavors of ice cream in disposable paper cups. That year, the A&P grocery chain put ice cream cabinets in 1,500 of their stories, allowing consumers to purchase their favorite frozen treat in the food market.
And in 1924, Frank Epperson’s Popsicle Corporation filed a patent on the process of creating flavored frozen treats on a stick, something Epperson famously invented nearly two decades earlier in his childhood after leaving a syrupy drink in the cold overnight, stirring stay in it. In 1924, its booming Popsicle Corporation reported sales of 6.5 million units. In the end, the frozen treats on a stick were the subject of numerous litigation suits for copyright infringement. After Epperson’s majority investor struck a deal with Good Humor, the inventor of Popsicle divested of his company, sold his patent and left the frozen treat business.
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The ice cream boom is fading
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the ice cream industry was hit by a double whammy: the Great Depression and the repeal of Prohibition. After that, “World War II, with its milk and sugar quotas, further weakened enthusiasm for ice cream,” wrote Gail Damerow, author of Ice cream! The whole scoop. The industry surged again after the war, but it was the spark of prohibition and the temporary dismantling of one industry that helped lift another to unprecedented heights – an impact that changed forever the ice cream industry in the United States.
READ MORE: Why the candy market exploded after WWII
