Brooms have been used for centuries to sweep caves, cabins and castles. Before 1797, brooms world-wide were home and hand-made. Sometime later crude brooms were fashioned by tying something on a stick or handle: straw, hay, fine twigs or corn husks. These crude brooms did not sweep well and fell apart after a short time. The sweeping quality of brooms changed in 1797 when Levi Dickenson, a farmer in Hadley, Massachusetts, made a broom for his wife, using the tassels of a variety of sorghum (Sorghum vulgere), a grain he was growing for the seeds.
She thought Levi’s broom was exceptionally good and told friends and neighbours about it. Word of Levi’s broom spread quickly throughout the community and people asked him to make one for them. As the demand for these brooms grew, Levi grew more and more of the sorghum. Each sorghum broom he made swept well, but ultimately fell apart as all brooms of that time did. Apparently, people were not disturbed by the brooms falling apart, for that was the nature of brooms. Levi was not satisfied with having his "very" fine brooms fall apart, and envisioned a machine which would help him make better brooms, and make them faster. In 1810 the foot-treadle broom machine was invented. This clever machine played an integral part in the Industrial Revolution. While developing the broom machine, its inventors also examined the broom handle, looking for a better way to secure the sorghum tassels to it. These inventors drilled two holes in the handle and inserted split pegs into the round holes. The broom corn was lashed onto the handle and pegs, using linen twine. In the mid-1820's the Shakers, an industrious religious order, started making brooms, changing the design of the round broom. Meanwhile, back in Europe, the birch or besom broom industry, as it was called, had prospered since Saxon times in the sandy heath areas of south-east England, where the birch grows profusely.
By about 1830,
there were enough one- or two-man broom shops
in the U.S. that 60,000 brooms were being
produced annually. This provided enough brooms
for domestic needs and put this nation into the
broom export business. Brooms were exported to
Canada, South America and Europe, but not
England, as their Broom Squires obtained an
embargo against Yankee brooms. Ultimately these
brooms were permitted into England, bringing an
end to the twig broom business there.
The cleanliness of roads had been a concern
since their invention because they quickly became
dumping grounds for all types of waste, resulting in
numerous health concerns. Early streets were also
constructed of cobblestone and brick because of
their ability to withstand great weight. As a result,
they contained many hiding spots for sediment
and refuse. These cracks and crevices also made
cleaning very difficult. It was only in 1849 when
C.S. Bishop patented the first mechanical street
sweeper in the U.S. It was forty-seven years later
when Charles Brooks patented the first self-
propelled street sweeper, which he thought was an
improvement over Bishop's idea.
Developing the same idea further, different
sweepers were created for wide range of
applications, of these the most lucrative is the
manual sweeper. A manual sweeper is a small
investment that could resolve cleaning issues for
most. An extremely cost-effective machine that
works neither on fuel nor on power. With it’s
compact design and great efficiency the manual
sweeper is definitely the future of cleaning.