On February 10, 1806, Boston merchant Frederic Tudor shipped a cargo of ice from Massachusetts to Martinique in the Caribbean, launching the international ice trade. Despite skepticism, Tudor built a global empire, shipping New England ice to ports from India to Australia.

Tudor's ice trade became a symbol of American enterprise in 19th-century literature. Poets like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who lived in Boston, referenced the ice trade in their work, and it featured in travel narratives by writers like Mark Twain.