Broom

Description

Broom of broom corn with heavy, linen cord stitching and bindings. Chestnut handle measures 64".

Notes

No single industry was practiced as universally by the Shakers as the manufacture of corn brooms. Nearly every Shaker community and many times each family within the community engaged in this work, each marketing their own product. Round, flat, and whisk brooms were made in a variety of sizes and shapes. The Shakers at Watervliet, NY, began manufacturing brooms in 1798 with the Mount Lebanon, NY community taking up the work before the end of the century. The claim by the Shakers that one of their own, Theodore Bates of Watervliet, first had the idea to improve the traditional round corn broom by making it flat has not been substantially contested. By lengthening the handle of a common broom, some to well over six feet, hard to reach places where dirt and cobwebs accumulate around ceilings, stairwells, and between attic rafters could easily be cleaned. Ceiling brooms that survive tend to show the signs of being made in the earlier part of the 19th century. They are wound with linen cord instead of wire and the stalk that binds together bunches of broom brush is left visible instead of being covered with a layer of thin broom straw as was done on brooms of later manufacture.