Clothespin
- Object Name:
- Clothespin
- Object ID:
- 2025.022.02-.06
- Creator:
- Duarte, Robert Theodore (1941-2023) -- Manufacturer
- Place of Origin:
- Merimack, NH
- Date:
- circa 1972
- Description:
- Clothespin. Group of five plastic disc clothespins, invented, patented, and manufactured by Robert Duarte, who founded the R.T. Duarte Company, South Merrimack, New Hampshire. c. 1972. One green clothespin is slightly larger than the others and has a brass eyelet. There are also two pink and two white clothespins with no brass eyelet and an inscription that reads, "R.T. DUARTE CO. / MERRIMACK, N.H. / U.S. PAT. NO. 3305904" on one side with another inscription on the opposite side, "DISCS / THE ANY DIRECTION CLOTHESPINS".
- Material:
- Plastic
Brass - Dimensions:
- W-0.5 Dia-1.94 inches
- Provenance:
- These clothespins were owned by the brother of Robert Duarte, Gary Duarte and donated to the New Hampshire Historical Society.
Robert Theodore Duarte (1941-2023) was born in Lewiston, Maine, on June 18, 1941 to Margaret Wilding Duarte (1919-1985) and Dorival Duarte (1915-1998), along with siblings Marcia Ann (1940-2023) and Gary John (born 1946). After graduating from Lewiston High School, Robert served in the U.S. Navy from 1959 to 1962. After his honorable discharge he married Marla Webster in Lewiston in 1962 and the couple moved to Nashua, New Hampshire, where Robert would work for defense contractor Sanders Associates as an electronic technician for the next thirty-two years. In 1964 Robert filed a patent for a "universally mountable clothesline fastener," which were two plastic discs joined in the center with a brass eyelet. The U.S. Patent Office issued him patent 3,305,904 on February 28, 1967. Robert started the R. T. Duarte Company in South Merrimack, New Hampshire, to sell his novel clothespins, which he soon named "Discs" and trademarked the term in 1972. Sold in bags of a dozen, they included large and small examples. In the Nashua Telegraph on December 26, 1978 Duarte published a notice that he was shutting down his company and that in January 1979 the assets would be sold to the Solar Disc Corporation of Dallas, Texas. Solar Disc continued to manufacture and sell Duarte's invention under the name "Pinwheels." - Credit Line:
- Gift of Gary Duarte
- Subjects:
- Clotheslines, Clothing and dress, Clothes washing, Manufacturing
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