Before the Shakers invented the clothes-peg in the 18th Century, freshly washed laundry was draped on bushes or tree limbs to dry. In 1853 the spring clothespin was invented by David M. Smith of Vermont and it revolutionized wash day. The advantage of Smith’s spring clamp was that it could not “be detached from the clothes by the wind as is the case with the common pin and which is a serious evil to washerwomen.”