Before the invention of refrigerators, techniques such as pickling were used to preserve food. Additionally, in the past, food was stored in cool environments such as snow or in a box outside the house where it can be exposed to the cool wind blowing in the night. Therefore, the invention of refrigerators was revolutionary because it introduced new ways of preserving food and keeping it safe without being limited by external conditions (environment and weather).
This expression of the revolutionary perspective meets the standards established in class to a certain extent, but it does contain flaws. There are minor flaws that lie in all three elements, but the major weakness in this excerpt are due to the contributions of the elements of discontinuity and novelty since they weren't described very succinctly. Firstly, it is important to notice the large gap between the urban and rural population. It's true that the invention of refrigerators has had a large social impact accumulatively over the years, but initially, refrigerators were not affordable to everybody. Therefore, the author is making some assumptions regarding the households that were affected by the introduction of refrigerators. Since not every household had a refrigerator, some households were still using the old technology of ice wagons and ice boxes even though the refrigerators were around. Secondly, although there was a jump in the revolutionary technology, there were stages of discontinuity that led to the revolution of refrigerators. However, the author seems to give the readers an indication that there was one big jump from ice wagons to refrigerators, while missing out the modifications made in between. Since discontinuity and novelty experience some overlap, the step changes or modifications that were made along the way display the novelty element along with the discontinuity. These modifications are small changes made from one prototype to another and hence are not revolutionary, as opposed to the author's claim.