Shirts were hung by the tails with three clothes pins ... oh, excuse me, I forgot you modern day folks are not familiar with clothes pins. In those long-ago days, the only pins available were of wood. They were much like a six-inch piece of chair rung that had been split two-thirds of its length. The cloth was laid over the line and the pin slid down over it to lock it firmly on the line. It would take a mighty healthy March wind to blow most clothes off the line. The housewife carried the pins in a special apron tied around her waist. Here she would stash any odd coins that fell from the trouser pockets (and, I might say, during the Depression, the picking was slim).
If the housewife was lucky, and no rain squall sprang up, the wind and the sun would dry the clothes in a few hours. In the winter, the clothes would freeze up (perhaps the idea for "freeze-dried" food came from some astute observer of this phenomenon). The sight of a line of frozen long Johns has inspired many an artist to record that scene.
After drying came the taking down, sorting, folding and carrying into the house where the next day's duties were already laid out: Ironing Day! If you have never slept on a sheet dried in the sun, you have a real treat comin' to you. That is, if you can find a clothes line these days.