February's history artifact presentation at the Waterbury Senior Center featured a box of clothespins made by the Demeritt Company dating to the late 1930s/early 1940s.
Vermont a historical "hotbed" of clothespins
The Demeritt Company began as a canning factory in 1900 but, like many industries in Vermont, relied on the
seasonal availability of local vegetables to manufacture its products. Looking for something to manufacture in the "off-season," the company settled on clothespins. In 1936, Demeritt's was one of only 6 manufacturers of clothespins in the United States. Two others were located in Montpelier (U.S. Clothespin Company and National Clothespin Company), two in Maine, and one in Virginia.
Washington County, Vermont, was "a hotbed of clothespin-making," joked presenter Skip Flanders, adding, "There are worse things to be known for." A 2012 article in The New York Times Magazine called Vermont "the Silicon Valley of 19th century clothespin technology" because the patents that eventually established modern spring clip clothespin design were filed by Vermont inventors.
Demeritt's Holdfast Clothespins represented one of the first home goods industries in Waterbury. They were made of white birch, which was in plentiful supply and a crucial material for several manufacturers in town, including spools. The clothespin industry in Vermont alone consumed thousands of feet of the state's lumber daily, according to a 1936 article in the Waterbury Record.
The great clothespin debate
Clothespins come in two kinds: the spring clip and the slotted or split pin. All three of Vermont's factories manufactured both kinds, but their efforts focused on manufacturing the spring variety. Interestingly, New England and Midwestern consumers were inclined toward the split pin, while southern states and the west coast preferred the spring clip clothespin. Demeritt shipped most of its clothespins to the latter two regions as well as abroad, particularly to Mexico.
Attendees at the Senior Center engaged in spirited discussion of which style of clothespin was better as they shared memories of hanging laundry, pinning diapers, and even working at one of the factories. [There was also some debate about the merits of tumble-drying laundry versus hanging.]
Packaging ingenuity
In November 1935, Roy L. Johnson, of Randolph, Vermont, was granted a patent for an ingenious packaging design for clothespins. It was comprised of a single piece of cardboard, folded in such a way that the clothespins could be affixed to the creases; then the remaining cardboard is folded over the pins and locked with a tongue-in-slot design to complete the package. In his patent application, Johnson granted the rights to this packaging design to the Demeritt Company.
Clothespins hang profits on tariffs and home workers
Vermont manufacturers left hung out to dry
Clothespin production was booming in central Vermont by 1920, when annual output reached 72 million clothespins. In testimony to a congressional committee that year, Bertrand R. Demeritt, founder of the company, explained that one gross (12 dozen) of clothespins cost 58 cents to produce, but Swedish manufactures were importing clothespins at 48 cents per gross, outpricing the Vermont companies in the American market. Demeritt called for Congress to impose a 20 cent tariff to protect the Vermont clothespin industry against the competition brought by cheap foreign goods - a demand echoed by many manufacturers in the wake of World War I. No such tariff came to fruition, signaling the beginning of the end for clothespin production in Vermont.
Another challenge facing Demeritt's bottom line was labor law. The company had long used the practice of contracting with home workers for the assembly and packaging of the clothespins. As independent contractors, the workers were not given the protections and benefits that employers were legally required to provide to employees. In 1943, the U.S. Department of Labor sued Demeritt on the grounds of violating certain sections of the Fair Labor and Standards Act.
Federal District Judge James P. Leamy decided against Demeritt, writing in his opinion, "I am compelled, by legislative history, the terms and purposes of the act, to conclude that the home workers here considered are within its protection" and must therefore be compensated at no less than minimum wage ("Demeritt Pin-Packers Not Independent Contractors," Waterbury Record, July 13, 1944).
In response to the ruling, Demeritt Company moved to factory-based only production, assembly, and packaging.
From mecca to marginal to a memory
These factors, combined with the appearance of the electric dryer and increasing amounts of cheaply-manufactured goods imported from overseas after World War II, ultimately forced Vermont's clothespin factories to close their doors, one by one.
U.S. Clothespin Company, in Montpelier, was the first to close, in the 1940s. Demeritt ceased operations in 1968. Only National Clothespin pinned their hopes on future success, thanks in part to a large contract with department store chain F. W. Woolworth. They finally succumbed in 2009.