John S. Hicks

How this work helped shape America

Born in Virginia in 1845 to a formerly enslaved father, John S. Hicks entered the ice-cream business in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1864 before moving to Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1878. There he developed a substantial confectionery enterprise in a purpose-built commercial property that contained an ice-cream factory in the basement and an ice-cream parlor on the first floor. Hicks became locally known for the quality of his manufactured ice cream and expanded his contribution to the industry through product innovation. In 1905, he received U.S. Patent No. 801,379 for an improved ice-cream mold designed to produce bricks of ice cream with decorative figures formed inside them. Hicks's career combined manufacturing, retail sales and patented product development, demonstrating Black American entrepreneurship within the expanding American commercial food and confectionery industry.