Line drying or Backyard clotheslines is now old-fashioned and largely disappeared from our society. Even some cities and communities have imposed rules against the clotheslines. Industrialized laundries with delivery and drop off have made our lives more convenient and easier. Our great-grandmothers used to hang every load of laundry outside to dry. It may seem tedious to hang wet clothes outside and wait until they dry in hours, if not a day. Now we have dryers that can do this job in minutes. However, line drying has some advantages over the dryers as they save money, promote energy conservation and it is also good for clothes and fabrics.
Electric dryers were invented in the 1930s, but they took another 20 years to replace the traditional line drying. Before the Self-service laundry, New Yorkers used to hang their laundry outside buildings, homes, and in backyards as you can see in the photos below.
How did you like getting your laundry back? Is it like…it goes to the opposite building, so you are sharing a line with the building across the street?
There are two pulleys on the line; you hang an item, push the line out until there is no more wash to hang, let it dry, and pull it in. There was a fixed point in the distance where your line would go that wouldn’t interfere with another. The clothes would blow off the line on windy days, and it wasn’t much fun in the winter either.
I appreciate your clarification! Haha. Could you tell me how the line got attached to something else? Perhaps the pole or building across the alley?
Be very careful! The new line would require someone to climb a ladder. If an old-line breaks, you can carefully thread the new line through with the old line. Apartments on the first floor were not desirable because people could steal your clothes off the line.