Who Invented the Refrigerator?
The first artificial refrigerator was invented by renowned Scottish physician William Cullen in 1755. After the cumbersome device produced a small amount of ice through delicate, manual labor, refrigeration technology was deemed impractical and was not further advanced for decades.
The world had to wait almost 160 years before the first practical, electric refrigeration unit was finally introduced by American inventor Nathaniel B. Wales in 1914.The designs and mechanisms of refrigeration underwent a lengthy series of minor and major breakthroughs prior to the 20th century. Depending on what level of sophistication the technology must reach to be considered “invented,” there are numerous other men of the 18th and 19th century who could be said to have invented what we think of as the refrigerator today.
