Cottage Hand Broom

In 1798, a Shaker brother named Theodore Bates clamped a round bundle of broomcorn into a vise and stitched it flat. The flat broom was born. Tia Harrington still makes hers the same way: broomcorn she grows herself in collaboration with local farms, gathered and wound tight with waxed cordage, stitched down into the wide-fan turkey wing form that has sat on American kitchen hooks for over two hundred years. Nine inches long, light enough to hang on a nail, brisk enough to clear a countertop or a muddy stoop in four strokes. Material: Tampico fiber, rattan-wrapped handle Hanging Loop: Brown leather Handcrafted in Pittsburgh