JHADU MANUFACTURING

Brooms have been used for centuries to sweep up, in, and around the home and workplace. They may be made from a variety of materials, both man-made and natural. Man-made bristles are generally of extruded plastic and metal handles. Natural-material brooms may be constructed of a variety of materials, including brush, but generally include stiff grasses such as broomcorn and/or sotol fiber. Broomcom brooms have been made for at least 200 years and are considered superior brooms. Plastic brooms merely move dirt around; however, broomcom stalks actually absorb dirt and dust, wear extremely well, and are moisture-resistant. Broomcom brooms are the most expensive of the manufactured brooms.

Broomcom is actually a variety of upright grass of the species sorghum referred to as Sorghum vulgare, or S. bicolor variety technicum, belonging to the family Gramineae and cultivated for its stiff stems. Broom bristles are derived when these stiff, tasseled branches—that bear seeds on the ends—are harvested and dried. The seeds are edible, starchy, and high in carbohydrates. They can be used for human consumption (in cereals) or for animal feed. The tasseled stalks, used in the manufacture of brooms, can grow 2-8 ft (0.61-2.4 m) tall. Sorghum is especially valued in hot and arid climates due to its resistance to drought.

Mexico grows and processes most of the broomcom and sotol fiber used in American broom production. Sotol fiber, a yucca fiber, is sometimes used on the inside of the broom and is wrapped with more expensive broomcom, thus lowering the price of the natural-bristle broom.

The production of broomcom brooms is still largely a craft production with a single operator working quickly at a machine, making brooms by hand. There have been some changes in the manufacture of broomcom brooms within the last several decades, but those changes have been very minor. Essentially, the handcraft has changed little since mid-twentieth century.

Brooms were often used in matrimony rituals to symbolize a union.. Enslaved African-Americans married one another in a civil ceremony referred to as “jumping the broom” in which the couple would literally jump over a broom to signify matrimony. Today, African-Americans occasionally recreate this custom by jumping over a broom at weddings, using specially handmade and decorated brooms for this purpose. These brooms then become a centerpiece within the new household.

Ashes and dirt were moved around and out of the house using bundled branches and brush for centuries. Native grasses were dried and bundled together, often decoratively woven at the top or tied tightly with yarn or fabric to keep the brooms together. Southerners have used native sweet grass and other grasses for their long stalks with tasseled ends for broom bristle. The course of American broom history was altered in the late eighteenth century, when some say that in 1797 Levi Dickenson, a farmer from Hadley, Massachusetts, used a bundle of tasseled sorghum grass (also called broomcom) to make a broom for his wife. It is likely these early broomcom brooms were simply lashed or woven together, resulting in the fact that they often fell apart. Other experiments with attaching the circular bundles of broomcom led to wooden handles. By about 1810, wooden handles with holes drilled into them were used to lash the broomcom to the handle using wooden pegs.

Examples of brooms.

Whether Levi Dickenson was the first American to use sorghum to make brooms is in contention. However, nearly all acknowledge that the United Society of Believers, familiarly called the Shakers, quickly moved into the broom-making business about 1798 by growing broomcom and making brooms. The Shakers’ Watervliet, New York, community took the lead in manufacturing brooms, although nearly all the Shaker communities constructed and sold them throughout the century. The Shakers are credited with inventing the flat broom. They recorded that Theodore Bates of Watervliet examined the circular bundled broom and determined that flat brooms would move dust and dirt more efficiently. The bundles were put into a vice, flattened, and sewn in place.

The Shakers led the way in improving the broomcom broom. They appear to be the first to find that wire more effectively secured the broomcom to the wooden handle rather than tying or weaving. They developed treadle machinery to wind broomcorn around the handle while securing it tightly. They developed special vices to flatten the broom for sewing into the requisite flat shape. Still other machinery was devised to quickly separate the seeds of the broomcom from the tassel bristles. Using foot-powered machinery, the Shakers could make two dozen brooms per person per day—quite a feat for the early nineteenth century.

Today, the machinery is electrically powered. However, in even the largest American broom factory, the production of broomcom brooms is still remarkably a hand craft. (One factory foreman in a large broomcom factory says he can pick up a broom and tell who amongst his staff made it because each one is made according to the skills and preferences of the maker.) A single machine and operator sits at a machine and constructs a broom. The machines, and the methods, have not changed in over 40 years.

Broom (Phool Jhadu) is a important cleaning tools and is precisely used for cleaning Houses, Flats, Hospitals, Shops, Nursing Home, Railway stations Dormitories and other public places.

The demand of Broom (Phool Jhadu) is totally related to the grouth of Urbanization programme as well as Industrial developments.

This Industry require low capital investment and can be started in a minimal investment and also create high Empoloyment potential.

At present there is few manufacture in the organized sector manufacturing Broom, though there are local producers also previals in the market and the quality give a impetus to this Industry.

A new entrepreneur can well venture in this field.