Note the word "soot." Soot was a very real outside drying factor near heavy industry. Often the wind direction was a factor in whether or not laundry could be dried outside. Did anyone grow up in a locale where soot rained down on everything? Paul Simon mentioned it in his song "My Little Town" with the line, "my mom doing laundry; hanging out shirts in the dirty breeze." Decades ago, John and I went to the auction of an old hardware store in Brunswick, MD. The store was located downtown beside the railroad yards that stretched a couple of blocks in width. Years of coal-fired locomotives and then Diesel smoke had deposited soot over everything, even the boxes that they pulled out of the store's attic. There was a box that had a cellophane window at one time showing the doll inside. The box had a fine coating of soot on it and the cellophane was eaten away, along with the doll's hair, by the acids in the coal smoke. Her white dress held up better, but it was a dingy shade of gray under the layer of soot. Imagine hanging out laundry in that air.
1960 was more than 50 years ago, but laws passed over the decades have cleaned up the air. Apartment houses no longer incinerate waste and, over time, the boilers have switched from coal to cleaner fuels. Only the black soot around the tops of the old brick chimneys tells the history of dirty fuels.
It is better for everyone that soot is no longer a reason to need a clothes dryer and that so many more houeholds are able to have a clothes dryer than in 1960.
1960 was more than 50 years ago, but laws passed over the decades have cleaned up the air. Apartment houses no longer incinerate waste and, over time, the boilers have switched from coal to cleaner fuels. Only the black soot around the tops of the old brick chimneys tells the history of dirty fuels.
It is better for everyone that soot is no longer a reason to need a clothes dryer and that so many more houeholds are able to have a clothes dryer than in 1960.
