Shaker broom vise

The Shaker broom vise is a specialized production vise that made the normally round broom flat to make it more efficient for cleaning purposes. The Shakers' invention revolutionized the production and form of brooms; in the process creating a whole new industry in New England.

Shaker brooms built upon the 1797 contribution of Levi Dickenson of Hadley, Massachusetts who used tassels of sorghum (Sorghum vulgare), known as broom corn, to make a better grade of broom. Brooms were essential to kitchen and hearth cleanliness. The manufacture and selling of brooms was the most widespread of all the Shaker industries. The first sorghum brooms were made by the Shakers at Watervliet. This colony is credited with being the first to grow broom corn, which was around 1800 when they first grew it on an island in the Mohawk River that was near their community.

Theodore Bates (1762–1846) of the Watervliet Shaker community is credited with the innovation of the "flat broom" in 1798, as all brooms and brushes prior were round. He invented a unique wooden vise that pressed the round bristles flat. This allowed heavy twine to be sewed through the flattened broom to permanently hold that shape.

Bates' vise idea to make flat brooms and brushes was a leap in technology since it produced products that worked much more efficiently. An industry developed to sell these to the outside world. Soon the New Lebanon community ramped up to make these flat brooms. This flattening technology worked well with their woodworking technology of lathe-turned wood handles. The vise was used as part of the Shaker broom making process.

Most of the Shaker villages were involved in making these flat brooms and flat brushes. The flat brooms were produced by the tens of thousands. Only a few of the original Shaker flat brooms made in the nineteenth century have survived into the twenty-first century. These were made under the auspices of a Mount Lebanon Shaker Trustee named Robert Valentine (1822–1910).

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