While you rarely see clothes hanging from clotheslines outdoors anymore, it is a simple way to make your life greener. The clothes dry in the air so they smell fresh. They don't use any electricity. Some stubborn stains fade in the sun and you get a bit of exercise in the bargain.
Significance
Clotheslines were the only way to dry laundry before there were gas or electric dryers, so they feature in art, film, and photographs. One of the most well known oil paintings by William-Adolphe Bouguereau who lived from 1825-1905 is "The Clothes Line." It portrays a woman hanging laundry in a field on an autumn day. A flock of white ducks is in the background and her young daughter sits, looking on, from a blanket spread out on the ground. Many other pieces of art show laundry hanging from clotheslines mounted on balconies or on pulleys next to apartment house windows.
History
Until the rotary clothesline was invented by the Australian Gilbert Toyne in 1926, people used straight clotheslines. His was the first round clothesline. Like an umbrella, Toyne's clothesline is based on a center post from which arms radiate out. Many clotheslines are strung between the arms. Twenty years after it was invented, the Hills Hoist company began to market it and it became Australia's most popular clothesline.
Types
There are several types of modern clotheslines available for sale in stores and online. They include outdoor clotheslines and indoor clotheslines. Outdoor clotheslines usually are made out of steel or aluminum posts, while indoor clotheslines can be made of wood, plastic or metal. They range in price from about $40 to $300. Some firms include installation with the cost of buying a clothesline. Indoor clotheslines need mounting bars installed in the walls or the ceiling while outdoor clotheslines need to have the post holes dug, ground sockets installed and cement poured.
Size
Outdoor clotheslines can be like Toyne's rotary clotheslines. In the United States they are often called "umbrella" clotheslines. These can hold as much as 182 feet of clothesline, enough for three large loads of laundry. The other style of outdoor clothesline uses two galvanized steel posts, which are usually 95.5 inches high. Four or more plastic-coated rayon or cotton lines extend between the two four-foot horizontal arms. They can hold even more and heavier laundry than the umbrella clotheslines.
Considerations
Indoor clotheslines can be mounted on the ceiling, mounted on the wall, free standing or foldable. There is even a wall-mounted type of indoor clothesline which is retractable and holds five 12.25-foot long lines. In fact, heavy-duty retractable clotheslines can be bolted to exterior walls for outdoor use as well. Not only do you save money because clotheslines do not use either gas or electricity, you get the benefit of being outside. The laundry will smell fresh and clean even without adding those fragrant dryer sheets.
