The History of the Ice Cream Scoop

Alfred L. Cralle was born in Virgina just after the end of the Civil War and worked alongside his carpenter father before attending Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C. and later settling in Pittsburgh. There, he worked as a porter at both the St. Charles Hotel and the Markell Brothers Drugstore. He noticed that the servers at both businesses struggled to serve ice cream to customers because it often stuck to the spoon when they were trying to scoop it into cones or dishes. So, Cralle invented a solution — the first-ever ice cream scoop. He called his creation an “ice cream mold and disher” and optimized it for one-handed use by including a thumb grip and a scraping tool. He was granted a patent on February 2, 1897 and became the first Black man in Pittsburgh to earn one, a feat made possible by the ratification of the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship rights and protections to all those born in the U.S., including the formerly enslaved. Cralle’s invention became a hit almost immediately because it allowed servers to scoop “40 to 50 dishes of ice cream in a minute” without getting the treat all over their hands, which had previously been an issue. While several firms reportedly expressed interest in purchasing Cralle’s patent, he never received a large amount of money from his invention and was not famous during his lifetime. However, he did receive enough money and recognition to move into a new role as the assistant manager of the Afro-American Financial, Accumulating, Merchandise and Business Association (he later became the organization’s general manager). While the design has been updated slightly over the years, the basic concept of Cralle’s ice cream scoop is still in use in homes and ice cream parlors all over the world today.