Parpart and Hiram D. Layman were granted a U.S. patent for a refrigerator attachment using an electrically driven pump to circulate chilled ice water.
On March 24, 1914, Florence P. Layman (Parpart) and her husband Hiram D. Layman were jointly granted U.S. Patent No. 1,090,925 for a refrigerator attachment that used an electrically driven pump to circulate chilled water, produced by melting ice, through the interior of an icebox.
This invention arrived at a pivotal moment in the history of home food preservation, as electricity was beginning to enter American households and inventors across the country were racing to find ways to make refrigeration safer, more efficient, and less dependent on manual ice delivery. While the device was not a standalone compressor-based refrigerator in the modern sense, it represented an important early application of electric power to enhance the cooling performance of the traditional icebox, a critical intermediate step in the evolution toward the modern electric refrigerator.
Though some popular accounts have credited Parpart with inventing the "first practical" or "modern" electric refrigerator, patent-office language reveals a more nuanced reality: the patent covers an attachment for circulating chilled water via an electric pump, not a self-contained refrigeration unit. Nonetheless, the invention illustrates Parpart's continued engagement with cutting-edge home technology and her willingness to collaborate with her husband on joint engineering projects.
This patent, alongside her earlier street-sweeper invention, cements her legacy as one of the more versatile and technically ambitious American woman inventors of the early twentieth century.