International Broom Makers Union
S
€20,00
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The International Broom and Whisk Makers’ Union, founded in the late 19th century amid the rise of American industrial labor organizing, was a craft union representing workers in the broomcorn and brush-making trades—an industry that had grown from small workshops into a structured manufacturing sector tied to Midwestern agriculture and expanding urban markets. Like contemporaneous unions of cigar makers or printers, it emerged in response to mechanization, wage pressure, and factory discipline, seeking to preserve skilled labor standards, regulate apprenticeship, and negotiate collective contracts. The union maintained a professional culture through its journal, The Broom Maker, and participated in the broader ecosystem of the American Federation of Labor. Its decline in the early 20th century reflected larger shifts: consolidation of manufacturing, the erosion of craft-based production, and the gradual displacement of brooms by new domestic technologies, marking the end of a once-distinct industrial trade.
International Broom Makers Union
€20,00