Into the breach stepped one of the giants of the automotive industry, William Durant, president of General Motors. Realizing the potential of Guardian's product, he bought the company in 1918, renamed it Frigidaire, and put some of GM's best engineering and manufacturing minds to work on mass production. A few years later Frigidaire also bought the Domelre patent and began churning out units, introducing improvements with virtually each new production run. Other companies, chief among them Kelvinator and General Electric, added their own improvements in a quest for a share of this obviously lucrative new market. By 1923 Kelvinator, which had introduced the first refrigerator with automatic temperature control, held 80 percent of market share, but Frigidaire regained the top in part by cutting the price of its units in half—from $1,000 in 1920 to $500 in 1925. General Electric ended up as industry leader for many years with its Monitor Top model—named because its top—mounted compressor resembled the turret of the Civil War ship-and with innovations such as dual temperature control, which enabled the combining of separate refrigerator and freezer compartments into one unit.
Market forces and other concerns continued to drive innovations. Led by Thomas Midgley, chemical engineers at Frigidaire solved the dangerous problem of toxic, flammable refrigerants—which had been known to leak, with fatal consequences—by synthesizing the world's first chlorofluorocarbon, to which they gave the trademarked name Freon. It was the perfect refrigerant, so safe that at a demonstration before the American Chemical Society in 1930 Midgley inhaled a lungful of the stuff and then used it to blow out a candle. In the late 1980s, however, chlorofluorocarbons were found to be contributing to the destruction of Earth's protective ozone layer. Production of these chemicals was phased out and the search for a replacement began. Market forces and other concerns continued to drive innovations. Led by Thomas Midgley, chemical engineers at Frigidaire solved the dangerous problem of toxic, flammable refrigerants—which had been known to leak, with fatal consequences—by synthesizing the world's first chlorofluorocarbon, to which they gave the trademarked name Freon. It was the perfect refrigerant, so safe that at a demonstration before the American Chemical Society in 1930 Midgley inhaled a lungful of the stuff and then used it to blow out a candle. In the late 1980s, however, chlorofluorocarbons were found to be contributing to the destruction of Earth's protective ozone layer. Production of these chemicals was phased out and the search for a replacement began. At about the same time Frigidaire was introducing Freon it also turned its attention to the other side of the mechanical refrigeration business: air conditioning. Comfort cooling for the home had been hampered by the fact that air conditioners tended to be bulky affairs that had been designed specifically for large-scale applications such as factories, theaters, and the like. In 1928 Carrier introduced the "Weathermaker," the first practical home air conditioner, but because the company's main business was still commercial, it was slow to turn to the smaller-scale designs that residential applications required. Frigidaire, on the other hand, was ready to apply the same expertise in engineering and manufacturing that had allowed it to mass produce—literally by the millions—the low-cost, small-sized refrigerators that were already a fixture in most American homes. In 1929 the company introduced the first commercially successful "room cooler," and a familiar list of challengers—Kelvinator, GE, and this time Carrier—quickly took up the gauntlet. Window units came first, then central whole-house systems. Without leaving home, Americans could now escape everything from the worst humid summers of the Northeast and Midwest to the year-round thermometer-busting highs of the South and desert Southwest.
At about the same time that both refrigeration and air conditioning were becoming significantly more commonplace, both also went mobile. In 1939 Packard introduced the first automobile air conditioner, a rather awkward affair with no independent shut-off mechanism. To turn it off, the driver had to stop the car and the engine and then open the hood and disconnect a belt connected to the air conditioning compressor. Mechanical engineers weren't long in introducing needed improvements, ultimately making air conditioning on wheels so de rigueur that even convertibles had it. At about the same time that both refrigeration and air conditioning were becoming significantly more commonplace, both also went mobile. In 1939 Packard introduced the first automobile air conditioner, a rather awkward affair with no independent shut-off mechanism. To turn it off, the driver had to stop the car and the engine and then open the hood and disconnect a belt connected to the air conditioning compressor. Mechanical engineers weren't long in introducing needed improvements, ultimately making air conditioning on wheels so de rigueur that even convertibles had it. But as wonderful as cool air for summer drives was, it didn't have anywhere near the impact of the contribution of Frederick McKinley Jones, an inventor who was eventually granted more than 40 patents in the field of refrigeration and more than 60 overall. On July 12, 1940, Jones—a mechanic by training but largely self-taught—was issued a patent for a roof-mounted cooling device that would refrigerate the inside of a truck. Jones's device was soon adapted for use on trains and ships. Hand in hand with Clarence Birdseye's invention of flash freezing, Jones's refrigeration system made readily available—no matter what the season—all manner of fresh and frozen foods from every corner of the nation and, indeed, the world.
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