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Vintage Photos of Laundry Scenes in New York City’s Streets From the 1930s

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.

#1 Hanging laundry, 1940. (Museum of the City of New York)

#2 Court of the First Model Tenements in New York City. March 16, 1936. (Museum of the City of New York)

#3 View of clothesline strung between windows in brick courtyard, 1392 Madison Ave. ca. 1933. (Museum of the City of New York)

#4 Greenwich Street. 1932.(Museum of the City of New York)

#5 Vacant Lot between Buildings at 148th St., 1939. (Museum of the City of New York)

#6 A view down an alley, as rows and rows of laundry hang from tenements, New York City, ca. 1930s. Seen looking west from 70 Columbus Avenue or Amsterdam Avenue at 63nd Street. (NYC Municipal Archives)

#7 Tudor City from 39th Street. c. 1930-1933. (Museum of the City of New York)

#8 Wooden Rear Tenements–Children Playing in Dirt. 1935. (Museum of the City of New York)

#9 Rows of laundry outside a New York City apartment house, 1935. (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)

#10 Tenements, New York, ca. 1937. (The Jewish Museum)

#13 A woman hanging out the laundry on the roof of her building, New York City, 1939.

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Written by Alicia Linn

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