Saturday 10 October 2009

The Clothesline Debate


Are trailer parks the only place where we are going to allow laundry to hang out? Are we too full of ego and status and prestige-thinking? Do we realize that General Electric sold us a bill of goods way back in the 1940's that we could live better and cheaper with electricity? (the perfect example of successful advertising campaigns) Did you know that your family spends 6% of all power bills on drying clothes? Do your children think a clothes peg is a potato chip bag clip? Have you heard of the right to dry movement? The issue has brought together younger folks who are more pro-environment and very older folks who remember a time before clotheslines became synonymous with being too poor to afford a dryer. “It seems like such a mundane thing, hanging laundry, and yet it draws in all these questions about individual rights, private property, class, aesthetics, the environment,” said Steven Lake, a British filmmaker who is releasing a documentary next May called “Drying for Freedom,” about the clothesline debate in the United States.

1 comment:

Kitty said...

clotheslines are verboten in my suburban neighborhood. i have a giant folding rack that has taken up residence in my garden tub for drying. works better for me than outside anyway, because of our allergies. peace, kitty