In the beginning, women
just spread wet laundry over their fence rails or the shrubs in the back yard;
at dinner time (noon, on a New England farm) they went outside and flipped
everything over. Laundry lines appeared, tied between trees, from the sides of
barns to the corner fencepost, etc.; women draped things over the lines, but had
to keep a sharp eye on the wind—your laundry could be all over the dooryard in
a matter of minutes.
And so there were
clothespins…
The first were simply short pieces of sticks with a split in the
middle. They worked fine until the stick split completely; some enterprising
woman wrapped the top ends tightly in wet twine—when the twine dried, it
tightened, making a solid top that split less often.
In the 1840s, there was a rush of clothespin ideas; inventors played
around with length and width, choice of wood (oak, cedar, ash). There was a three-pronged
design, which stuck on the line with two prongs on one side of the rope, one
prong on the other—a sort of modified paper clip!
And in 1853, David M. Smith of Vermont, came up with the first
two-piece, spring clamped clothes pin; it could not “be detached from the
clothes by the wind as in the case with the common pin and which is a serious
evil to washerwomen.”
I remember my grandmother’s
laundry yard in Boston. It was a fenced-in section of the back yard (it was
considered improper to have your laundry hanging in full view of the neighbors—goodness’
sake, they might see your underwear!). It had, as I remember, six laundry lines
that overhung a series of boardwalks; access was from the laundry room door in
the basement.
I loved the laundry
room—it was warm, smelled of yellow bar soap, powdered Ivory Flakes and bleach;
there was a shelf of colorful boxes and cans and a cloth bag of pins that
dangled from a hook near the back door; several wicker baskets; it had a
soapstone double sink big enough to get into when I was about five or six.
So, down the back
stairs from the kitchen to the laundry room, out the door into the laundry
yard; I remember sheets hanging nearly to my knees—bright, white-walled tunnels—and
the blue sky up over my head; I remember running up and down the boardwalks, my
Red Ball Jet sneakers going whop-whop-whop
on the wooden slats.
Oh, the smell of those
line-dried sheets!
Here in Australia we call them clothes pegs, not pins. I remember hearing a story of a kindly older lady who gathered in her neighbours' washing one day when it began to rain while they were away at work, except for the man's underwear, because she couldn't bring herself to touch those items!
ReplyDeleteThat's a wonderful story! Clothes "pegs;" interesting term, but makes as much sense as "pins," I guess...
DeleteIt sure was great to slip between the sheets that brought sun and fresh air into a bedroom! And I remember a long pole that enabled me to lift the line up so the sheets didn't drag on the ground!
ReplyDeleteMy mother had one of those poles; I remember not setting it correctly once -- all the laundry hit the ground. She was NOT pleased...
DeleteWell done! You've really captured the hidden senses of memory in describing the smell and sound of the wash line. The flapping of clothes on the line is a vivid early sound for me. And the clear aroma of soap and sunshine on sheets is a scent evocative of my grandmother.
ReplyDeleteAmazing, isn't it, Mike? Such a common experience for so many of us: laundry lines, smells, sunshine...grandmothers!
DeleteMy grandmother grew up in Utah and she used to tell me about remembering to bring the laundry in off the clothesline in the winter before it froze because if it froze and they happened to drop something like a tablecloth or sheet it could actually break apart into pieces! Now that's COLD!!!
ReplyDeleteIt got cold up here sometimes, too, Gail; I remember bending the sheets to get them through the door; we draped them on the stair railings until they softened up!
DeleteLoved your history of clothes lines - clothe puns was a new term to me too. I remember as children we used my mother's drying rack as the frame for a tent. At our last house I had an old fashioned pulley for hanging up clothes inside and here in Scotland we still use washing lines outside - though it used to be frowned on if you put out washing on a Sunday. Clothe pegs were a great little toy for toddlers - my daughter and granddaughter enjoyed playing with them and sorting them into colours. Now I have a tumble dryer and a whirly - I agree with Mike there is something satisfying in seeing washing blowing in the wind on a sunny day.
ReplyDeleteI have a dryer, too, but I still hang the laundry outside when I can...there's something about it that speaks of "home."
DeleteSorry - that should have, of course, read as "clothe pins" on the first line of my comment!
ReplyDeleteI knew that! I love that on one side of the Atlantic we call them clothes "pins," on the other, it might be "pegs." Ahhhh....the nuances of language!
DeleteI don't remember clothes pins from my childhood, but I distinctly recall the old washing machine with its exposed electric motor below the machine's tub, grinding away noisily.. I remember watching with fasination as the wash was fed, one piece at a time so the rollers wouldn't jam, out of the wash tub, through the rim mounted wringer and into a seperate rinse tub set on a stool. The wringer was them swung to the side, and the wash was fed once more from rinse tub to a basket, to be taken out back and pinned to the clothes line, strung from a tree to a corner of the house. Ahh, the good old days!
DeleteI remember those old wringer/washers, too! We had one that had a motor for the washer, but we had to crank the wringer by hand...and that was MY job...I took it quite seriously!
DeleteI remember when my mother got her right arm caught in the ringer. She yelled but didn't cry. Thank goodness my father was home and could extricate her arm. She was bruised but nothing broken.
DeleteAfter that my mother got a new washing machine.
Your right Deb .A Feast for the senses! a Perfect Storm of all the Elements Except [hopefully] Fire!
ReplyDeleteHmmmm...maybe the sun is the fire, the laundry yard is the earth...and the whop/whop/whop of my sneakers was running like the wind!
DeleteI just love your descriptions that bring me into that moment.
ReplyDelete