< p>When did the refrigerator become the home’s communications center?  Does anyone know the answer to that question?  At the start of the 20th Century, about half the homes in the United States had iceboxes, which (duh) used big blocks of melting ice to keep food from spoiling.  Did people use magnets to attach little notes to their iceboxes?  I don’t know, because that was like 1,000 years ago and no one thought to write any polemics on icebox messages at  the turn of the century.  The other half of households at the time didn’t have an icebox and relied on root cellars and prayer to keep their food from spoiling.  I’ve never seen a root cellar, but it doesn’t sound magnetic.  Maybe they kept a chalkboard or something down there, though.

 

The first refrigerator to see widespread use was the General Electric "Monitor-Top" refrigerator introduced in 1927.  I’m guessing that’s also when refrigerator magnets came into widespread use, and parents began plastering their kids’ drawings and homework all over the fridge.  Where were those things displayed previously?  The garbage can?  Those details have been lost to history.  At the beginning of our new century, though, we can take comfort in the fact that refrigerator messaging technology has taken another great leap forward thanks to the Audiovox Homebase Audio/Video Message Center.  Nowadays, parents can simply display digital scans of their kids artwork on the Homebase’s 7-in. digital picture frame instead of watching the construction paper slowly yellow and wilt.  God bless progress!