Antique Rose Broom Label 1910s 1940s NOS Blank Panel Lithograph Art Printed in USA

Antique Rose Broom Label · 1910s–40s · NOS · Printed in U.S.A.

Size: 6 x 3.5 inches

A big red rose made to sell a broom 🌹 This unused antique broom label shows a full-blown red rose and a half-open bud on thorny stems across a split yellow and sky-blue field, with a single rosebud climbing into the blank yellow panel at the top, all inside a navy border. Tiny type in the corner reads 7-PRINTED IN U.S.A.

THE LABEL
• Tall format with a blank yellow panel across the top
• Red rose, rosebuds, green leaves and thorny stems
• Diagonal yellow and blue background, navy border
• Dot-shaded lithographed color on paper
• New old stock, never applied to a broom

BROOMS, FRANKLIN AND A FARMER'S WIFE
Legend says Benjamin Franklin found a broomcorn seed on a whisk broom from overseas and started America's broomcorn crop. His real letter of February 21, 1757 shows him mailing "whisk-seed" from Virginia to his sister Jane Mecom. The first American broomcorn broom made for sale is credited to Levi Dickinson, a Hadley, Massachusetts farmer, who made one for his wife in 1797 and was soon selling hundreds. The Shakers of Watervliet, New York then flattened the broom with a vise and stitching, giving it the shape still used today.

BROOM COUNTRY
In 1919 the United States had 1,034 broom factories. Oklahoma led the nation in broomcorn from 1915 to 1946, and both Lindsay, Oklahoma and Arcola, Illinois called themselves the Broomcorn Capital of the World. Arcola, home of the Thomas Monahan Company since 1922, put up a statue of Franklin leaning on a broom.

THE BLIND BROOM MAKERS
On June 25, 1938, President Roosevelt signed the Wagner-O'Day Act, requiring federal agencies to buy products made by blind workers. The first schedule of government orders under it was for brooms and mops, and during World War II blind workers in 36 agencies made brooms and mops for the military.

BROOM LORE
Carry a broom and a loaf of bread into a new house first. Never sweep after dark. Sweep under someone's feet and they'll marry within the year. A broom falling across the doorway means company. Old American superstitions like these run to hundreds of entries in folklore collections from Illinois and Kentucky.

WHAT CHANGED
Broom factories fell from 1,034 in 1919 to 320 by 1939. Mexican broomcorn imports began in 1965, plastic brooms came in around 1967, and after NAFTA in 1994 American broomcorn growing all but ended. The colorful paper labels disappeared with the small broom shops that used them.

GOOD FOR
• A small frame for a kitchen, laundry room or mudroom
• Rose and botanical ephemera collections
• Junk journals and scrapbooks
• Broom and advertising label collectors