The Broom Ledger
Brooms sort into a handful of families by head shape and job; this page describes each family without cataloging any maker's line.
The flat broom is the indoor standard: a fan-shaped head, stitched through with several rows of seams, that concentrates fibers into a thin working edge. That edge tracks fine dust across smooth floors, which is why flat brooms are built from broomcorn or flagged synthetics and used with pulling strokes.
The round broom is the oldest form and the most forgiving. A bound bundle of twigs or corn fiber sweeps in arcs and rides over uneven ground without catching, which keeps it useful in yards, on gravel, and among leaves long after flat brooms have given up.
The push broom scales the idea up: a wide head, a braced handle, and two hands driving it. Stiff polypropylene is the usual fiber, because the ground is usually concrete or asphalt and the debris is usually grit rather than dust.
The scrub brush shortens the fibers until the tool changes jobs entirely. Used wet, with the user's weight behind it, it abrades rather than sweeps; decks, masonry, and wet floors are its ground, and bassine or hard synthetics are its fibers.
Around these four sit the specialists: the whisk broom for one-handed work on benches and steps, the angle broom cut on a bias to reach baseboards, the hearth broom scaled for ash. Each is the same fiber logic in a different geometry.
Because the families overlap — one fiber appearing in several head shapes — the practical question is never which broom is best in the abstract. It is which geometry matches the surface underfoot and the debris on it.
Further reading