Augustus Jackson | The Father of Ice Cream
How a 19th Century Black Ice Cream Maker From Philadelphia Helped Me Find My Place In History.
I love studying history.
Funny enough, if any of my previous history teachers read this, you know what they would tell you? “Ryan is lying to you because he did terribly in my history class.” Well, I’m not lying to you. My high school history class grades were indeed abysmal.
I ended my Junior year with a D+ in History class (and the + may be generous). I had some free room in my Senior year schedule, so I retook the class with a different teacher to improve my grade. Well, it didn’t matter because I didn’t do any better. I enjoyed my teachers, and by all accounts, they were great, but when it came to studying history in school, I just couldn’t get into it.
The subject matter was unclear to me, and memorizing dates was difficult. When Outkast’s ‘Hey Ya!’ hit the radio, I learned every single word within a week of its release, but somehow memorizing the order of events that led to the revolutionary war was a hard pass.
I’ve spent much of my adult life wondering why I wasn’t a better student. Even in elementary and middle school, I spent a lot of time with teachers and counselors, all of whom questioned my ability to retain information. I could read chapter after chapter of the assigned books, and it went in my head and out of it just as fast. Admittedly I wasn’t particularly motivated to read. Still, even when I did, I would try so hard to retain information, but when the book test came along — another C, sometimes a D (even a few F’s).
It was frustrating.
I’d dread book tests. I’d dread getting asked questions in English and History class. Some teachers thought I was lazy, while others thought I didn’t do the work. I’m sure there were elements of truth to both. Still, from my teachers to my mom, I would constantly baffle them with my ability to memorize ridiculous NBA stats, hold interesting conversations with adults on the daily but couldn’t for the life of me keep good grades.
A few years ago, I read an article about why Black children tend to struggle in school. My fourth-grade teacher seemed to think Black children inherently weren’t as bright as white children (she literally told my mom this at a parent-teacher conference while trying to explain my struggles in school). As I read the article, my childhood started to click.
Now I can’t remember the exact name of the article, but in my research for this piece, I found another article similar to the one that caused my epiphany, and that’s ‘Good teachers help kids find themselves represented in the history of America; I despised history classes when I was growing up because I felt erased from them. It took one great teacher to change all of that’ by Blair Imani.
Blair goes on to write, “Everything about history class felt like a burden, from the heaviness of the despised history textbooks to the length of the lessons. As the child of one of the only Black families at the school, I felt isolated. I became hyper aware of the reactions of my classmates during history lessons about slavery, and felt like there was a magnifying glass on me. I even felt ashamed of my heritage, that such was all we’d contributed to the American experience.” When I tell you I felt that… just know I felt that. I, too, remember awkward looks when talking about slavery. I, too, remember doing Popcorn as a kid, reading a bit ahead in the text, seeing the n-word appear, and dreading who would be picked to read that paragraph. Is it better if I read that word or one of the white kids who were clamoring at the chance to say nigger out loud without getting in trouble?
I think about this often because a part of me remembers those parent-teacher conferences, the red circled F’s on papers I wrote, staying after school with teachers, summer school, and being put on academic probation after my first semester of college. By no means was I ever a standout student, academically at least, so when I sit in meetings with CEOs and interview VP-level candidates, give presentations to hundreds of professionals on topics such as employee engagement, when I’m invited to speak to a classroom full of college students, when people seek my advice on career moves and life, or when I sit in the home that has my name on the mortgage it’s difficult to process how any of this happened.
But in the moments when I’m able to overcome my imposter syndrome and rationalize my success, I’m now able to see that my failures in school weren’t completely tied to my inability to focus on the subject matter; it’s in part because I never saw myself in the subject matter. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I began to see my story entangled in the fullness of our history.
800 words in, and you may be wondering… what does any of this have to do with Augustus Jackson? I asked our community for suggestions on what they’d like me to write about if I wrote some kind of book. One request I received was to write about the history of ice cream. Yes! I love it.
I began my research because I also am curious about the history of ice cream. Within my search, I came across a largely unknown historical figure who changed the game regarding how each one of us enjoys ice cream today. Now how in the world could such an important person not be more well-known? The short answer is it’s complicated. An even shorter answer is he’s Black.
Nicknamed “The Father of Ice Cream,” Augustus Jackson was born on April 16, 1808, in Philadelphia, PA. First of all, how cool is that nickname? I remember one year I was trick or treating with the girls, and as I walked away from a house, I heard someone whisper, “hey, that’s the ice cream guy!” I loved it so much but let me tell you this; if they whispered, “hey, that’s the father of ice cream!” I’d forever walk around in sweatshirts that said, “Yes, I am the father of ice cream,” because that is the dopest nickname ever. Anyway, back to the real father of ice cream.
Augustus revolutionized the way we think about ice cream, but before he changed the game for good, he was working in the kitchen at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., at The White House. Augustus started working in The White House in 1817, so if you do the math, you’ll see that he was only nine years old! I was curious about child labor laws in the 1800s, so I looked them up, and they basically didn’t exist. It wasn’t until 100 years later that there began to be laws that addressed child labor, but the supreme court ruled these laws unconstitutional… it was a whole thing.
Anyway, Augustus began working under President James Monroe’s administration. He continued on through President John Quincy Adams’s administration and ended his tenure under President Andrew Jackson’s administration. Twenty years working in the White House.
From 9 to 29, Augustus cooked for multiple Presidents, countless congresspeople, several dignitaries, and many folks you’ll find in your history books. While Washington D.C. wasn’t within Confederate territory, Black people from northern states were still being kidnapped and sold into slavery within the confederacy. The fact that a Black man successfully worked twenty years in The White House, beginning as a child, is nothing short of amazing. Not only that, he took his twenty years of experience and parlayed it into a concept that would change ice cream forever.
In 1837, Augustus went back to Philly to start his own business. A catering company and confectionary (a confectionary is a business that sells sweets, essentially a candy shop, practically my dream job). But the real money maker for Augustus? Ice Cream, of course! Up until that point, ice cream was a delicacy for rich people. Not only was it expensive to make, but it was expensive to keep. Refrigerators, as we know them, didn’t appear in America until 1913, and it wasn’t until after World War II that refrigerators started being mass-produced.
Technically the first freezer was invented in 1857, but it was made using ammonia and sulfur dioxide, meaning if you ever said, “I could literally die for some ice cream,” then you were born at the wrong time.
Up until 1837, most ice creams were made with eggs which created its own issues during the pre-refrigeration days. What Augustus did was create a recipe that didn’t need eggs. And that’s not all! He began adding salt to his base, which in addition to bringing out the flavor of his ice cream, also lowered the temperature, allowing him to package and sell it throughout the area.
Jackson packaged his unique ice cream flavors in metal tins and sold them to ice cream parlors around town owned by other Black people. These partnerships went on to be wildly successful in the region. Imagine tasting ice cream for the first time. Like, you’ve maybe heard of it, but then somebody creates a cheaper yet tasty version of this fine delicacy and serves it to you? You already know that business was booming!
He’d sell his ice cream for up to $1 per quart, which is equivalent to about $30 today. For reference, that’d be like buying a $15 pint of ice cream, so you know that stuff was good. His new style of ice cream became so popular within the region that the eggless style would eventually be known as Philadelphia-style ice cream.
Unfortunately, Augustus Jackson didn’t live to see his creations flourish for long. In January 1952, he died. He was only 43 years old.
How he died largely remains a mystery. I’ve read that he died in a train accident, but most articles don’t acknowledge how he passed because records of his life are challenging to find.
His recipes don’t exist. His methods weren’t patented. His family continued his ice cream legacy, continuing to operate his business. Still, other creators encroached on his wildly popular style of making ice cream and increasingly took more and more of the market share until Augustus Jackson’s business no longer existed.
But what about those five Black-owned ice cream businesses Jackson partnered with while he was alive? As you can assume, the 19th century wasn’t a kind period for Black Americans. One by one, these businesses were run out of town, leaving the majority of Black history to be lost like many of our stories and accomplishments during this period.
The Augustus Jackson story deserves its flowers. As a Black ice cream maker, I always assumed I was “other” in this field. Growing up, one of my favorite ice creams was Stewarts Shops Philly Vanilla Ice Cream. It was a perfect vanilla ice cream with a dash of salt and a mountain of flavor. I assumed its origins were rooted in Philadelphia, though I never knew my favorite ice cream was rooted in Black history.
When I read about Black history, I learn about our struggles, our ability to overcome, our perseverance, etc. The learnings are essential, but wow, are they heavy. When you think of Black life in the 1800’s you’re more likely to think of the enslaved or the civil war than you are to think about ice cream. That’s because the story of Augustus Jackson is widely unknown. It’s time we change that.
Entertainment has never been better. Between Apple, Disney, Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, HBO, Amazon Prime, etc., there are more than enough platforms to tell the Augustus Jackson story. If anybody with pull from those networks comes across this piece, I beg you, please create the Augustus Jackson story!
Black stories can’t solely be rooted in pain. That pain, while etched in our history, is not all of who we are. We are love, joy, entrepreneurial, and creative. We are human, and our stories deserve to be told in the full scope of humanity.
When we see ourselves in history, we unlock a level of discovery that deserves to be explored. I didn’t have that. Many Black people have to jump through hoops to explore the carefree joys of our history, especially this far back. If the world is heavy, history is a boulder, and those burdens prevent many of us from diving too deep into our past, afraid of seeing tragedy repeatedly. Our resiliency is well documented, but we are so much more than our struggles.
The next time you’re enjoying a scoop of ice cream, specifically eggless-style ice cream with a pinch of salt, know that you are participating in Black history!
Augustus Jackson, The Father of Ice Cream, helped pave the way for ice cream makers like me, showing that our history is rooted in every part of our country, especially the sweet ones.