Clothes peg

Clothes peg for delicate products.
Not to be confused with the one-piece wooden clothes-peg for hanging up coats that was invented by the Shaker community in the 1700s. During the 1700s laundry was hung on bushes, limbs or lines to dry but no clothespins can be found in any painting or prints of the era. The clothespin for hanging up wet laundry only appears in the early 19th century patented by Jérémie Victor Opdebec.[citation needed] This design does not use springs, but is fashioned in one piece, with the two prongs part of the peg chassis with only a small distance between them—this form of peg creates the gripping action due to the two prongs being wedged apart and thus squeezing together in that the prongs want to return to their initial, resting state.[citation needed] This form of peg is often fashioned from plastic, or originally, wood. In England, clothes-peg making used to be a craft associated with gypsies, who made clothes-pegs from small, split lengths of willow or ash wood.

Today, many clothes-pegs (also clothespins) are manufactured very cheaply by creating two interlocking plastic or wooden prongs, in between which is often wedged a small spring. This design was invented by David M. Smith of Springfield, Vermont, in 1853. By a lever action, when the two prongs are pinched at the top of the peg, the prongs open up, and when released, the spring draws the two prongs shut, creating the action necessary for gripping.