The original "refrigerator" was a household appliance that kept food cold using blocks of ice; now called the "
icebox", these cabinets became popular in the 1800s and early 1900s. The first modern electrical refrigerator to see widespread use was the
General Electric "Monitor-Top" refrigerator, introduced in 1927, and refrigerators became common in the United States in the 1930s. Regardless of the cooling technology, doors on the units were sealed shut using a mechanical latch. For example, statistics for the 18 months from January 1954 to June 1956 show that 54 children were known to have been trapped in household refrigerators, and that 39 of them died. As the issue rose in prominence, people were asked not to abandon refrigerators and to detach the doors of unused refrigerators. At least one state, Oklahoma, enacted legislation making the abandonment of a refrigerator with a latch, in a location where a child might find it, illegal. At least as early as 1954, alternative methods of securing air-tight closures had been suggested, such as in patent 2767011, filed by Francis P. Buckley
et al. in 1954 and issued in 1956. Starting in the mid-1950s, volunteers and health inspectors The act applied to all refrigerators manufactured in the United States after 31 October 1958, and is largely responsible for the adoption of the
magnetic mechanism that is used today instead of a latch. and Washington. Around the world, manufacture of latch refrigerators has been replaced by that of ones with magnet-closing doors. The number of U.S. and Canadian deaths due to suffocation in refrigerators declined a significant amount in the years following federal legislation. A 1985 study of suffocation deaths in the United States showed a sharp decline in the early 1960s, followed by a plateau and gradual decline to the early 1980s. The Refrigerator Safety Act was a factor in the decline, in combination with other factors such as "reduced exposure and increased
parental supervision". ==Entrapment hazards==