Competitors would constantly drop prices in order to remain appealing to customers, winning over potential buyers with the promise of freebies, like car accessories. In Philadelphia, concern over the practice of competitive pricing reached such a scale that a faction of retail dealers asked the ...
and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter. After the Civil War (1861- 1865), as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880, half the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third...