Frederic Tudor: The Ice King (CMC, Wednesday, Week 2)
coming-of-managerial-capitalismyear-twoFrederic Tudor was the man.
-- Cutting ice in Boston and shipping it to the West Indies: sounds totally ridiculous, but ice in Martinique sells for 40-80x price of ice in Boston.
-- Thrown in debtors prison twice; still manages to build a large and (semi) respectable business => tolerance for failure/lack of stigma to bankruptcy = incredibly important
-- Knowledge/experience/tech progress in a sleepy industry = roots of magnificent success
Photos of "Ice Diary" (Frederic Tudor's personal journal), an almanac, and the ledgers of Tudor Ice Company. It's a good thing that I was born in the late 20th century and not the early 19th; my handwriting is far too messy to make a go of it as a old-school corporate tycoon.