The lowly broom may well be the oldest cleaning tool mankind has used in all of history. Brooms are mentioned in the Bible and archaeologists have found undoubted evidence that brooms were used in prehistoric times. While the first brooms may have been just a handful of grass bound into a form that more resembled today’s whisk-broom than our long-handled version, primitive man and even some other primates may have used small, leafy branches to brush away leaves or gravel in order to provide a smooth place to rest. Those early homemade brooms had to be replaced often.
The first documented manufacture of brooms names Levi Dickinson, a Massachusetts farmer who grew broom corn and, in the seventeen hundreds, invented tools to make brooms that would last for a useful period of time. People had been making brooms from various materials for thousands of years before that, but they were often mere short-lived bundles of straw, twigs, reeds, corn husks and other grasses, used mainly to brush away ashes and embers around fires, and later around hearths in dwellings. The name “broom” comes from the thorny shrubs that were commonly used for sweeping and eventually came to refer to the implement itself. The word ”besom” is still in use, though rarely, and refers specifically to a bundle of twigs tied to a stout pole, usually with cord made from hemp or flax. These brooms were thicker and more rounded than today’s typical brooms.
It was the Shakers, a religious sect, who made the first flat brooms in the early eighteenth century. By binding the broom corn with wire and pressing it flat so that it could be sewn, they developed a broom with a wider reach and a shape that could more easily dig into corners and narrow spaces than the fat, round besom shape. The traditional brooms you buy today are very much the same as the ones made by the Shakers.
There are several traditions, myths and superstitions concerning brooms. One of the most intriguing is from Norway and dictates that you must hide your broom on Christmas Eve so that witches can’t find it to travel the globe dispersing mischief and bad luck in their wake.
I remember brooms of my childhood that were employed to brush the snow off our woolen snowsuits before we were allowed into the house after snowball fights or making snow-angels. There were brooms that chased bats out of the cellar, mice from the pantry, and a yellow tomcat from under the day-bed where he was determined to have his bathroom.
My grandmother often plucked a straw from her broom to test a cake — a practice that gave me the shivers — even though she claimed she “washed” the broom often. She “washed” it in the last of the dirty laundry water after she dumped it on the porch and swished it around with the broom.
One warm Sunday in late fall. Dad had gone pheasant hunting with my uncles, and Mother and I were cleaning up the flower beds and digging dahlia bulbs to store for the winter. Our house was only a few blocks from the edge of town and an occasional pheasant in the back yard was no rare sight. One flew into our garden, in a panic, and became entangled in Mother’s prickly Harrison Yellow rose bush. With hardly a moment’s hesitation, she whacked the pheasant with her broom, wrung his neck, and proceeded to get him ready for the frying pan. Dad came home, empty-handed from his hunting expedition, to find a platter of golden fried pheasant ready for supper.
Brooms continue to evolve (though not necessarily improve) as we try out man-made materials, static electricity and mysterious experimental technologies. We have had Webster to snag the cobwebs from the ceiling, fluffy dusters for the Venetian blinds, disposable pads to replace the broom and dust-mop, a wet version to replace that musty old rag mop and the unsatisfactory, disintegrating sponge-mop, and now, I find, a special tool to clean the dust and dead flies off the blades of the ceiling fan.
You can still buy a plain old regulation broom – thank goodness!