Have you heard of the Pittsburgh refrigerator cat? If not, you are definitely not alone. We haven’t heard about it either. However, don’t feel like you’re missing out on learning about an incredible cat breed. Despite the fact that the refrigerator cat has been repeated as a fact in many cat books throughout the decade, it is not a breed that ever existed. The story of the Pittsburgh refrigerator cat is an interesting one that dives deep into the phenomenon of urban legends and humanity’s fascination with animals.
Read on to learn more about the myth and how it became widespread in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
What is the Pittsburgh Refrigerator Cat?
The Pittsburgh refrigerator cat is a mythical cat breed that is said to open refrigerator doors and slip inside to steal food or take a cozy nap in the cool comfort of a kitchen appliance. They are said to have beards five to six inches long due to their need to live in darkness and dependence on their senses.
It is believed that these cats will suffer from seizures or heat exhaustion if they are removed from their homes in cold warehouses.
The Origin of Myth
In July 1984, the New York Times wrote a story about a breed of thick-furred, short-tailed cats that had naturally appeared in the cold warehouses of Pittsburgh. The report stated that these cats were developed as a means of controlling the furry rat population commonly found in storage warehouses throughout Pittsburgh. The writers claim that cats are “of great economic importance” because, without them, cold storage rats would take over and destroy rotting produce throughout Pittsburgh.
The refrigerator cat story took on a life of its own when it began to be reprinted in other papers around the country. Some papers report that the cats came from Svalbard, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, which explains why they are able to adapt to the cold climate in the warehouses and why they are better able to handle the freezing temperatures. temperature than the rodents prevalent among them. storage units.
The newspaper was not the only one to perpetuate the myth of the refrigerator cat. Even the respected English naturalist Richard Lydekker took the story of the cat in the Pittsburgh refrigerator at face value. In fact, it was his monograph in one of the volumes of Allen’s Naturalist’s Library that coined the term “cooler cat.” In his next book, A Handbook to the Carnivora: Part 1, Lydekker went on to describe the conditions in which these cats lived, their appearance, and how they would have seizures if they wandered too close to a stove.
The First Presentation of the Myth
The authenticity of the story of the Pittsburgh refrigerator cat was first discussed in the summer of 1895 by The American Naturalist, a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal. In the article, the writer talked about how Alice Bodington, a British-Canadian science writer, wrote to the secretary of a cold storage company to find out the facts about the so-called refrigerator cat breed. He received a response saying that there might be some “foundation” for the articles about cats living in warehouses, but that they were exaggerated.
The cold storage warehouse staff did have a cat that they took out of the “ordinary environment” of the building and moved him to the cold rooms to deal with the rats. While she was living there, she gave birth to kittens. Once they are old enough to fend for themselves, the mother is released from cold storage to settle back in her original habitat. However, he soon fell ill and the staff became concerned for his well-being. They thought that the change in temperature might be negatively affecting him, so they returned him to the cold room, where he recovered. They found it impossible to keep him in good health in the warmer warehouse rooms, so they attributed it to him having evolved in the cooler rooms to become a “cold storage cat.”
The secretary wrote that the whiskers were not five to six inches long but rather regular whisker length. However, they commented that the fur was thicker than a typical cat’s fur.
The American Naturalist concluded that cats living in cold rooms grew thicker coats in response to being in a colder climate. This is nothing new, as the coats of many animals will naturally change with the changing of the seasons. They also concluded that the reason the mother cat became ill when moved from cold storage to rooms with warmer temperatures was because she was uncomfortable with sudden temperature changes.
The Myth, Resuscitated
That seemed to be the end of the Pittsburgh refrigerator cat myth, but the story received a new lease of life in 1901 when it once again made its way into the newspapers. This revived story added new fictional details and completely disregarded the previously debunked myth.
The Chicago Tribune published an article in February 1901 describing the refrigerator cat as a result of a deliberate breeding program. The offspring of the original pair seem to withstand even the lowest temperature settings in storage rooms. The paper also reported that these cats were born with whiskers like walrus bristles and that they had to be shipped in ice-lined boxes when shipped to other cities; otherwise, they will suffer from the heat.
The story then went quiet for several years until 1912, when the New York Mail published a report on cats working for the government. Again, the story spread across the country, as it did from time to time throughout the 20th century.
Finally, Debunked Once and for All
In 1949, a cat expert named Ida Mellen took it upon herself to investigate the legend of the cat in the refrigerator. According to his research, there were never any cats in Pittsburgh’s cold storage warehouses, because there were no rats there to begin with because the extreme cold temperatures kept them away.
Mellen learned that there was, in fact, a cat that had given birth and raised a litter of kittens in one of the cold storage warehouses. However, these kittens are far from the super-felines reported in newspapers across the country. They could not withstand the freezing temperatures, nor were they distributed to other warehouses throughout the city. Quite the opposite, in fact, because these kittens do not thrive in the cold.
Mellen discovered an interesting tidbit about these kittens living in the warehouse, however. The mother is a pink-eyed albino, as are all her kittens. While the father’s eye color is unknown, it is assumed that he is a carrier of the albinism gene or is also a pink-eyed albino. It is entirely possible that the parents are also closely related. Although the kittens and mother cats all have amazing hearing, none of them can withstand bright light due to the nature of their unpigmented eyes.
Final Thoughts
As cute as a cat is with thick, durable winter fur and six-inch-long walrus-like whiskers, there’s sadly no breed of cat in the fridge. This legend, which developed over decades, highlights the sensationalism of an urban legend as well as our fascination, as a human race, with animals.
Featured Image Credit: DimaBerlin, Shutterstock
