Cleaning Up

Rival parties and their presidential candidates claimed the idea of housekeeping as a metaphor for governing. In the 1880s, the distribution of lapel pins in the form of miniature whisk brooms required no explanation other than the addition of the candidate’s name or portrait.

The domestic idea of sweeping-clean continued into the 1950s, with graphic renditions of hand-held brooms whisking bureaucrats and congressmen into the air over the U.S. Capitol dome.