Jonathan Rees

About the Author

Jonathan Rees is Professor of History at Colorado State University - Pueblo. He is the author of Refrigeration Nation: A History of Ice, Appliances and Enterprise in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013) and the forthcoming Refrigerator (Bloomsbury).

Author Archive Page

Girls deliver ice.

Girls deliver ice. September 16, 1918 (Photo: NARA)

Ice Work If You Can Get It

March 10, 2015By Jonathan Rees

The first scene of Disney’s smash hit 2013 cartoon Frozen is an homage to an extinct American industry.

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Pre-war kitchen (1930s)

Pre-war kitchen (1930s). (Photo: ellenm1 flickr CC)

Why We Shouldn’t Be Celebrating 100 Years of Refrigerators

October 27, 2014By Jonathan Rees

A number of people in the media have been discussing the so-called “centennial” of the refrigerator. None of them have explained why.

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Group of young white men turn a car on its side during Detroit riots of 1943

Rioting: An American Tradition

Looking at the rioters in Baltimore, or any other place, in isolation misses the point.

Gate_House,_Cemetery,_Gettysburg

The Story of America in Twelve Cemeteries

Our Past is Written in Stone

Julia Ward Howe

Mother’s Day or Mothers’ Day

Mothers’ Day did not start as a way to encourage people to be nice to their mothers, but as an impassioned effort by women to end war forever.

The Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862

Exploring an important step toward the abolition of slavery in the United States

Bruce Gillers - October 13, 2021:
The Boy Scout Council in Chinle Arizona was the name of the [...]

Carolyn Marvin - February 11, 2021:
Example: no proof of any silk dress...part of the poem written later. [...]

KateThomas - December 8, 2020:
Thank you. This has given me a greater insight into the historian [...]

Michael C. Lucas - August 5, 2020:
The American Government did not make a deal for Forty Acres and [...]