The Detroit News-Salvation Army Penny Ice Fund
By Becky Baulch / The Detroit News
After a series of dangerously hot summers, The Detroit News-Salvation Army Penny Fund was launched on May 15, 1938, to distribute ice to city residents.

The fund was created and administered by The News, and with it ice was purchased and distributed through the agencies of the Salvation Army at a price of one penny for blocks running up to 50 pounds. The penny charged for the ice was not an effort to add to the fund but to remove the stigma of charity and to allow the purchaser the feeling that he was a buyer rather than the recipient of a gift.

-somehow I don't think they'd have to worry about the 'stigma' problem today. How times and attitudes have changed.

Good find. Two very interesting articles.
A good point about the stigma of charity having disappeared. Especially if you consider that probably half the population of 1930s Detroit, if not more, would be below the poverty line of today.

But also a good point about people forgetting how hot it really was; and if people now think of the 1930s as being the hottest decade in the US (following recent revisions to climate history) - but there is no individual or collective memory of what it was actually like then its significance is not fully understood. More weather like this to come - as implied by GW - doesn't sound like much fun.

Some very interesting reading there. And winters were more extreme also.

I remember my late Mom telling stories of how in winter, after the first couple of storms had covered the sidewalks with snow and ice, you wouldn't see the sidewalks or the edges of the streets again until early spring. And unlike today, ponds, small lakes, etc. would freeze over for the entire winter. Ice skating, tobogganing were the big winter activities.

From my readings from links here and elsewhere about global weather history and trends, the normal solar cycle is starting to shift back and we'll be seeing more such winter weather again.

All in one year.

1936 coldest winter.
1936 hottest summer.

That kind of "climate change" would have the Gore/Suzuki crowd fearmongering in overdrive.

...when I was a kid, snow was as deep as our hips and we had to walk to school uphill both ways.

...what I'd like to know is how the cop managed to dip the bucket into the river from that height.

;-)

When I was a kid the snow was so deep there weren't any hills.

HA!

They drown horses, don't they?

I,ll bet the horse loves it