Hills Hoist

A Hills Hoist is a height-adjustable rotary clothes line, designed to permit the compact hanging of wet clothes so that their maximum area can be exposed for wind drying by rotation. They are considered one of Australia's most recognisable icons, and are used frequently by artists as a metaphor for Australian suburbia in the 1950s and 1960s.^[1]

For decades, beginning in 1945, the devices were mainly manufactured in Adelaide, South Australia, based on prior product designs purchased by Lance Hill from the Australian inventor Gerhard "Pop" Kaesler and related expired patents. The local emphasis led to Hills Hoist becoming the generic term for rotary clothes lines in Australia. The manufacturer soon became nationally market-dominant and rotary washing (clothes) lines have become common across much of the world. Direct successors to his product are now mostly manufactured in China.^[2]