Full Circle: Pin ups from our past

Published 8:43 am Friday, March 17, 2017

You’re thinking … yes, you are … that I’m going to talk about saucy gals like Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe. Wrong! You, my friend, couldn’t be further from the truth.

I ask you to think back. It’s a lovely summer morning. Rays of golden sun stream through a cloudless sky; a gentle breeze is blowing. You look around. That’s when you see her. Your mother. She’s in the backyard hanging wet laundry on a wire that is stretched from pole to pole. You look again. Your mom looks funny. What are those things stuffed in her mouth?

They look like fat, blond cigars. But, wait! She doesn’t smoke, so what can they be? You look more intently. Why, of course, they’re clothespins! And they’re lined up as far as her lips can stretch. The exactness of her perfectly orchestrated display is impressive. Not an inch of line space is wasted nor is there a chance the clothes will blow away. All the credit goes to those little, ordinary, everyday, commonplace clothespins. Where would our mothers  —  us!  —  have been without them?

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Women used to stretch their wet laundry over bushes, rocks and tree limbs. It’s astonishing to think how many were needed for a week’s worth of wash, and the inefficiency of it is staggering.

Early clothespins were made from a split piece of wood. To keep it from breaking, a wire or metal was wrapped around the top. You will well remember the Dolly Peg which was invented in the early 1800s. It was shaped from a single piece of wood with a round head. Girls drew faces on them and added dresses, thus giving them the name “Dolly Pegs.”

The earliest known patent for an American clothespin was filed in 1832. It was described as a bent strip of hickory held together with a screw. Then in 1853, in Springfield, Vermont, the wooden spring clothespin was invented. Despite its ideal engineering — two pegs connected with a spring — the next thirty-five years witnessed over 150 different additional patented clothespins, none of which improved on the original design. If those inventors had asked the women, they would have told them to cease and desist. All their creative fervor was a waste of time because the women were satisfied with the 1853 model! And who knew that tweezers could be made from this clothespin by taking it apart, reversing the pegs and sliding the spring back on?

Spring clothespins had a slight change in 1887, when a man named Solon Moore fabricated a coiled fulcrum from a single wire. This small adaptation forced the two wooden pieces to spring together more forcefully while also making the spring fulcrum rock. Manufacturing costs were significantly reduced and in no time his spring-actuated clothespins were being sold in huge quantities throughout the U.S. Years later the New York Times dubbed Montpelier, Vermont the “Silicon Valley of Clothespin Manufacturing.” (And here we thought Spam was a big deal.)

It didn’t take long for other copycat spring clothespins to follow. The most challenging of these happened in 1909, when one of Moore’s own employees improved the clothespin even further by eliminating one of the coils in the spring fulcrum. Audaciously he took out a loan and opened his own clothespin factory right across the street from Moore’s. Overnight the new company overtook Moore’s. At the height of production, 500,000 board feet of lumber were consumed. ( I don’t know exactly how much that is, but it impresses me!)

Then, as so often happens, cheap copies began pouring onto the U.S. market from Europe. Unfortunately the Vermont company owned no protective patents despite repeated efforts to obtain them. Their business went into a steep decline. (To demonstrate, in 1920 it cost 58 cents to make one gross of clothespins in Vermont, whereas the cheaper Swedish clothespins were only 48 cents a gross.) Then to add insult to injury, in 2009, with an influx of even cheaper Chinese imports, manufacturing in Vermont was forced to close its doors. The American made clothespin bit the dust and was never revived.

Of course by then most American housewives owned a dryer, an invention in my book that was right up there with God creating Eve out of Adam’s rib. Despite owning this glorious machine, every housewife kept her old clothespins in the event of a world catastrophe. (A catastrophe would amount to something that would cause the dryers to cease functioning … which to any woman would qualify as a world catastrophe!) Out of nowhere a more refined clothespin burst onto the market. Made out of stainless steel, it neither rusted nor decayed after repeated outdoor use. This new version relied on a strong, trapped, compression spring with a much tighter grip. I wonder if Ace Hardware carries them? And if you can use their coupons to buy them?

Clothespins were kept in a pocket, bag or box. Such ordinariness didn’t last long though, for as women are wont to do, they began spiffing up their containers. Who doesn’t remember seeing the clothespin bag that looked like a little pillowcase in the shape of a dress? It had a wire hanger in the shoulders with a scooped or v-shaped neckline, allowing access into the bag. Often the neckline was tricked out with lace, ruffles or rick-rack and was always sleeveless. My practical mom wasn’t drawn to such frivolity and kept her clothespins (those not in her mouth), in a plain industrial looking bag. It was always my suspicion, though, that housewives who chose those frilly bags also had crocheted covers for their extra rolls of toilet paper!

Our neighbor worked on the railroad. He wore long underwear throughout the winter. I’ll never forget the vision of his wife hanging up those long long johns. She was little, way shorter than her husband’s flannel undies, and could barely get them up and over the line, leaving the cuffs to drape in the snow. But, that wasn’t the worst part. That came in late afternoon when the woman removed the long johns from the line. They were frozen stiff as boards. The tiny lady, bless her soul, was dwarfed by the stack of stiff undies that looked every bit like giant Juicy Fruit Gum men wearing drop seats. But, undaunted, she piled them under her arm, one atop the other, and lugged them through the snow back into the house.

Even as a kid I was baffled by this routine as I knew those long johns weren’t really dry. Of course they weren’t. The woman had to thaw them out somewhere in the house. I wanted to suggest that her husband start wearing skivvies … or simply get another job! He never did either. He and his long, long johns remained Frozen Juicy Fruit men to the end.

The first entry in the Mirriam-Webster dictionary for the word “clothesline” appeared in 1830. It was described as a piece of rope or wire upon which people (what am I saying …. women!) hung wet laundry. It begs the question of why it took so long for us to evolve from drying our clothes on rocks. bushes and tree limbs to putting up a rope? I’ll bet Misters Mirriam and Webster didn’t even know what a “clothesline” was. Slim chance of their having done laundry.

Remember the umbrella clothesline? You know, the one with spokes radiating out from a center pole? There is a photo taken in Melbourne, Australia, in 1860, showing such a contraption. It is believed to have been invented by a blacksmith whose wife had a small back yard devoid of rocks, bushes and tree branches.

Much later in 1945, a soldier named Lancelot Hill had just returned from W.W. II. He was dismayed at finding his wife still struggling to stretch a rope between two trees in their cramped backyard. So, he took a pipe and a welder and created a rotary clothesline. Then one day he overheard two women wishing they had a clothesline like her’s. Lancelot immediately told his wife he was going to start making rotary clotheslines. In time they became an Australian icon known as the Hill Hoist. Some of them folded up with the spokes sticking up in the air. Personally I could never see the sense in that, although I guess it saved on air space?

Since 1946, the Hill Hoist clothesline has been internationally recognized for its excellence. It is even listed as a National Treasure by the National Library of Australia and has been featured there on stamps and works of art. Not only was it the emblem for the 1996 Adelaide Festival of Arts, but it was also featured during the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympic games. Who knew a humble clothesline could attain such glory?

All this talk makes me wonder why garters never achieved such fame? Any woman would tell you that they also held up important things. Hey, I’ve got an idea! Why not talk to the next Olympic committee about using a garter in their closing ceremony. Hmmm, maybe we should tweet Trump …
Peggy Keener of Austin is the author of two books: “Potato In A Rice Bowl” and “Wondahful Mammaries.” Peggy Keener invites readers to share their memories with her by emailing maggiemamm16@gmail.com. Memories shared with Keener may be shared or referenced in subsequent editions of “Full Circle.”