DOMELRE (an acronym of Domestic Electric Refrigerator) was one of the first domestic electrical refrigerators, invented by Frederick William Wolf Jr. (1879–1954) in 1913 and produced starting in 1914 by Wolf’s Mechanical Refrigerator Company in Chicago. Several hundred units were sold, which made it the most commercially successful product out of several competing designs of its time. The unit replaced the block of ice in the icebox with an electrical-powered cooling device, and was completely automatic.
DOMELRE has been described as “revolutionary” in the history of domestic refrigeration. It has been described as the “first domestic refrigerator,” the “first household refrigerator,” the “first electrical refrigerator,” the “first successful, mass marketed package automatic electric refrigeration unit,” the “first plug-in refrigeration unit,” the “first mass-produced small refrigeration system,” the “first electric household refrigerator to survive its infancy” or just as “the domestic electric refrigerator.”
According to ASHRAE, DOMELRE contained a number of innovations not found in prior domestic refrigerators, such as offering automatic temperature control by thermostat, an air cooled condenser that did not require water, and not the least, it also introduced a freezing tray for ice cubes.
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| DOMELRE refrigerator, ca. 1914 |
Commercially, DOMELRE was described as “a quick hit.” The unit was considered relatively inexpensive for its time. The original model was sold for $900 ($28,691 in 2025 dollars); the 1916 model was priced at $385 in 1916 ($11,147 in 2025 dollars), later dropping to $275 ($7,962 in 2021 dollars). 525 were sold.
A 2005 assessment of the history of the ice delivery business in the New York Times concluded that the technology that DOMELRE pioneered gradually led to the end of that business in New York by 1950.
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| DOMELRE refrigerator advertisement from 1914 |
