We all like to wear beautiful and pleasant clothes. Not only that, we also like variety. That’s a good thing, worn clothes sometimes need to be washed and hung to dry. For this we use a brilliant world invention: the clothespin. Where does the clothespin come from?
Clothing
It is not known how long people have been wearing clothes made of woven fabrics. What is certain is that this has been happening for thousands of years. Nature offers fabrics from which threads can be made, which are then transformed into clothing using various techniques. Nowadays there is quite a bit of choice. There are so many types of pants, blouses, sweaters, underwear, cardigans, skirts, dresses, you name it.
To wash
In the past, people did wear clothes, but there were few or no extra sets of clothing, at most for the wealthy. The washing frequency hundreds of years ago was definitely a lot lower than it is today. Now clothing is changed much more often and washed much more often.
And after washing…
If the clothes came out of the soapy water clean, they had to be dried first. That was harder than you think. If you put wet laundry on the ground, for example on a lawn, it quickly became dirty again . You could hang laundry over the back of a chair. That worked fine for a single sweater, shirt or so, but for a basket full of laundry you quickly ran out of chairs. Something had to be found to allow more laundry to dry at the same time.
Hang laundry on a line
The solution was not that complicated, a rope was stretched over which the laundry was hung to dry: the clothesline. Large items of clothing hung well. Smaller items of clothing fell off the clothesline very easily. Wet clothing that falls on the floor is immediately no longer clean. Something had to be devised to keep the laundry on that line.
Washing clamp / Source: Brya, Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Clips
The invention of the laundry clamp was already a huge step forward. Such a clamp is little more than a kind of fork, two legs that come together in one place. By sliding the open side over the laundry and the clothesline, the laundry is clamped. Although this system already solved many problems, the laundry could still come out. It had to be just a little bit better. In addition, there was another problem with the laundry clamp. Clothes that were too thin could slip out, but if you tried to clamp clothes that were too thick, the clothes clamp could break. A laundry clamp was simply not flexible.
Clothespin
Clothespins
The solution was devised by David M. Smith (1809-1881). In 1853, David invented an ingenious system: the clothespin. A clothespin consists of two parts, which are connected by a pre-tensioned spring. The two sides are shaped in such a way that one side forms a closed mouth, the other side can be pinched together. By squeezing the mouth opens and can be slid over the laundry over the washing line. Then you let go, the mouth closes and the laundry is stuck to the washing line.
Passive and active
You could say that the clothes clamp is a passive method of securing laundry to the clothes line. A clothespin, on the other hand, is an active method. Because the clothes peg clamps, the laundry stays actively in place.
Materials
Initially, clothespins were made of wood, the spring of metal. Nowadays you find them made of wood or plastic. Although plastic clothespins are usually less sturdy, you can often get them in different nice colors.
Clothespins in shapes and sizes
Clothespins for laundry?
We have already seen that clothespins are an excellent tool for securing laundry to a clothesline. There are also other applications where a clothespin can be useful:
- squeezing an opened bag of chips
- squeezing food bags closed so that they become resealable
- hanging birthday, birth or Christmas cards
- keeping papers together, so as a paper clip
- etc., basically anything you want to keep clamped together.
Sizes
All kinds of different applications also require different sizes. So you can buy very small clothespins that are specially made for hanging cards, or larger ones for heavier laundry. And then everything in between.