Clothespin
A small clamp or peg used to fasten wet laundry to a clothesline for drying.
Classification
- Mechanisms
- clamping, springing
- Tasks
- fasten, dry
- Materials
- wood + steel spring, molded plastic (one-piece or spring-hinged)
- Historical materials
- solid wood (dolly peg / simple peg, no spring), wood + steel coil spring (spring clothespin, from mid-19th century)
Principles
Spring-loaded clamping — two pivoted wooden or plastic arms held closed by a coiled metal spring (modern spring type);friction/wedge grip — a slotted single piece of wood grips fabric by tension alone, no spring (older dolly-peg / simple-peg type).
Evolution
- early 19th century
Simple wooden peg[1]
A single slotted piece of wood that grips fabric by tension alone, no spring.
- 1853 (US Patent 10,163, David M. Smith) – present
Spring clothespin[2]
Two pivoted arms held closed by a coiled metal spring.
- 1944 (Mario Maccaferri) – present
Molded plastic clothespin[3]
One-piece molded plastic, sometimes spring-hinged like the wood-and-spring form. Introduced in 1944 by Mario Maccaferri, who began producing plastic clothespins amid wartime shortages of consumer goods; he patented the design in 1945 (granted 1947 as US Patent 2,429,557).
Related objects
- clothesline
- drying rack
- clamp
- clip
- binder clip