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But the idea for a clothes hanger did not start with Parkhouse or the Timberlake company. Some believe that Thomas Jefferson, the inveterate inventor of so many items also invented the first wooden clothes hanger. But all through the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries clothing was usually hung on hooks or laid flat for storage. Hangers of various types and configurations began to be used in the middle of the 19th century. The prototype for the simple wire coat hanger began with a clothes hook that was patented in 1869 by O.A. North of Connecticut.
The basic wire coat hanger has changed very little from the original. There are also hangers made from wood, padded hangers, hangers with clips on the bottom to attach skirts or slacks. But the simple wire clothes hanger is not always used for hanging clothes. Because the type of wire used for them is relatively soft, it is easily bent, shaped and cut, wire clothes hangers have been a handy source of wire used by do-it-yourselfers, for children's arts and crafts, for lock picks and many other uses. The trend away from wire to plastic clothes hangers may be an inevitable step in the evolution of clothing storage, but what will multi-taskers do that use wire ones for more than hanging clothes on?