King’s Chapel Burying Ground, Tremont Street, Boston

King’s Chapel Burying Ground dates to 1630 and is Boston’s oldest cemetery. In the back right-hand corner you’ll find several tombstones marked Tudor, including one for Frederic Tudor, who built an ice harvesting and shipping business in the early 1800s that made him one of America’s first millionaires. In the days before refrigeration, ice was unavailable in the world’s tropical regions. But Tudor, working with collaborators such as Nate Wyeth (whose grandson Andrew Wyeth would become famous as a painter), figured out how to keep ice from New England lakes and ponds insulated in the holds of cargo ships for the long journey to places like Martinique, New Orleans, and even India.

Guest speakers

Bob Krim, Associate Professor, Department of Business, Framingham State University; founder, Boston History and Innovation Collaborative; author, Boston Made: From Revolution to Robotics, Innovations that Changed the World (2021); co-founder of the Innovation Trail

James Utterback, David J. Mcgrath Jr. (1959) Professor of Management and Innovation, Emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management; author, Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation: How Companies Can Seize Opportunties in the Face of Technological Change (1996)