MNN - Mother Nature Network

Urban norms were much different and not concerned with merely subsisting, but in maintaining certain class configurations and, more importantly in a dense population, class segregation. In any neighborhood that is considered middle class (note: NOT working class as the rural newcomers would have been), hanging one's dirtly laundry was socially unacceptable. Class standards mandated that one could afford the new modern devices that kept laundry a private task. Failure to maintain class standards would lower property values as what maintained those values was that only persons of certain classes could afford to live in that neighborhood. Class standards and morals are also inextricably linked. Persons of lower class status were also considered to have moral failings. Hanging one's underpants (or anything else) out visible to the nieghbors would have been an example of that moral failing as well as lower class status. These people would have then become a threat to the property values of the neighborhood as well as a moral threat to scoiety. As a small child, my mother hang our clothes out to dry. When we moved from the working class neighborhood to a new home in the burbs, clothes lines were not acceptable nor would my mother have used one. She now had a dryer and could afford to dry her clothing when it was convenient for her. We were now middle class - or at least not "poor". Another plus, we suffered from fewer allergies because there were no pollens on our clothing. I have worked with many people who came from middle class backgrounds and have no understanding of where their ideology is based. They simply are horrified that someone would hang out laundry and question the morals and character of such a person. I hang my clothes to dry in the basement (an option my mother lacked) due to the pollen issue. In case you are interested, the other BIG confrontation between class construction and sustainability is the suburban lawn. Historically, the more land one could have that was NOT under cultivation, the higher the class/more wealth they had. Planting a garden in the front lawn is decidedly PEASANT. The Food Not Lawns movement is a HUGE threat to middle class standards/neighborhoods.