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Oct 09, 2023

Who Made That Clothespin?

Advertisement Supported by Makers By Hilary Greenbaum and Charles Wilson The survival of the spring-hinged clothespin into the modern era is an unlikely story of Darwinian selection. From 1852 to

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By Hilary Greenbaum and Charles Wilson

The survival of the spring-hinged clothespin into the modern era is an unlikely story of Darwinian selection. From 1852 to 1887, the U.S. patent office issued 146 separate patents for clothespins. The first design that resembles the modern clothespin was patented in 1853 by David M. Smith, a prolific Vermont inventor. Smith also invented a combination lock, a “lathe dog” (a machine part for shaping metal) and a lifting spring for matchboxes. His “spring-clamp for clothes-lines” offered an elegant model of “two levers” hinged so that “the two longer legs may be moved toward each other and at the same time move the shorter ones apart.” Smith’s design was later improved by the 1887 patent of another Vermont inventor, Solon E. Moore, whose great contribution was the “coiled fulcrum,” made from a single wire, which joined the two grooved pieces of wood at the center of the clothespin. Moore’s version had the advantage of being both sturdy — it kept clothes securely on the line — and easy to manufacture.

Most other designs of the era, like Edmund Krelwitz’s bulky “improved clothes-pin” — consisting of “one continuous strip of sheet metal” that was “bent in the shape of a U” — have been lost to the same laundry purgatory where single socks must go.

If Vermont was the Silicon Valley of 19th-century clothespin technology, the early history of the device is more difficult to trace. “The British colonists would have already brought the idea over with them,” says Barbara Suit Janssen, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. “The earliest clothespins were just handmade, carved from wood.”

Samuel Pryor of Salem, N. J., received the first American patent for a clothespin in 1832. But his model was lost in a fire that destroyed the U.S. patent office four years later. It wasn’t until the late 1840s that clothespins began to be mass-produced. The first designs were generally a single piece of bifurcated wood with a nob at the top. David Smith, in his patent application for his two-piece clothespin, explained that the advantage of his spring clamp was that it could not “be detached from the clothes by the wind as is the case with the common pin and which is a serious evil to washerwomen.”

In the age of Maytag, the clothespin’s survival can be attributed, in part, to its usefulness in craft projects and how easily it can be converted into reindeer. Yet the industry has declined, and many domestic clothespin makers — like the Penley Corporation — have closed shop. Janssen remembers an exhibit on the subject that she curated a decade ago: “I overheard a little boy, around 7 years old, with his dad. He was looking at the collection and said, ‘Dad, what’s a clothespin?’”

HOUSEHOLD HELP

Glen Berkowitz is the executive director of Project Laundry List, a nonprofit organization that advocates washing clothes in cold water and hanging them out to dry. Here, he shares his thoughts on the clothespin:

What role does the clothespin play in Project Laundry List? Looking backward, the clothespin is a relatively easy way to dry your clothes without having to lay them on the ground or drape them over something. Looking forward, the clothespin is a phenomenal interest of ours because we’re in the process of setting up a brand-new national design competition.

What kind of design competition? The clothespin hasn’t changed for over 150 years. Is there a better clothespin just waiting out there by some young or creative mind? By the end of this year, we will formally launch this. We’re excited to see what we find.

Do you recommend the wooden or the plastic variety? If the wooden clothespin was still made in the United States, we would recommend it, but what’s made in America now are plastic clothespins. One is less economical and the other is less sustainable. It evens out.

Do you think your organization would exist if the clothespin hadn’t been invented? I’m not sure it would.

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