Another week closer to the big 300 for Sepia Saturday. This week featured a photo of a woman hanging laundry, and luckily the above photo came across in my batch of scanning this week! A rather fortunate coincidence and a perfect fit for the theme. Even if there’s no one hanging laundry in the photo, it’s clear a bunch of houses ran on the same schedule for wash day. It’s not a sight you see often anymore, but I happen to be a big fan of the solar drying method. In fact, once when I had hung out a batch of clothes on a crisp spring day, the neighbor came over to ask if my dryer was broken and offered me use of hers. She was a little stunned to find out that I had hung out laundry to dry on purpose! My mother almost never used the dryer we had at home – clothes were either hung outside on the line on nice days or inside on racks when the weather didn’t cooperate. It’s free, using no electricity, and the clothes don’t get beat up and ruined as fast as they do in the dryer.
This photo was likely taken in the mid 1950s in New Jersey likely at the home of Hiljea and Doede Jaarsma. There’s no date or information on the back of the photo other than, “Wash day.” A rather short but sweet post again, but one that brings back memories of fresh, crisp, line-dried sheets.
Your blog name is a good fit for your image.
And they smell so nice when dried in the breeze and sunshine!
I’m with you – why pay for the cost of running a dryer if you have sun and wind free at your disposal, and I always think that fresh air is so much better for the washing. Funny to think of the housewives checking out each other’s wash, but they probably did.
And don’t forget the sound of the sheets flapping in the wind. And then crawling between their sweet smell the first night after washing.