The great broom evolution

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.

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