Thibodaux man finds his niche with Cancienne Broom and Mop factory

When people ask Bruce Robertson what he does for a living, he proudly responds, “I make brooms.” He speaks proudly because he knows every broom that comes out of Cancienne Broom and Mop factory is quality and can out sweep anything available at the local grocery store. Although Cancienne brooms are not internationally or even nationally known, they have been cleaning the floors of south Louisiana for over 70 years.

Robertson’s factory, where he works by himself, is located behind his small, nondescript house tucked in a neighborhood of north Thibodaux. He moved the factory there after taking the business over from Cleveland Cancienne, Robertson’s father-in-law, who started the business in 1933, in a similarly small, nondescript house just one street over.

Like any great craftsman, Robertson enjoys reminiscing about his past accomplishments. “The most brooms I have ever made was seven dozen in one day,” he boasts. “It took me from 4 that morning till 5 that evening. But, I am slower now. I am lucky to make three dozen in a day.” Robertson also understands that he will never be able to take the place of his predecessor. “He was 64-years-old when he died, and that old man was making 15 dozen a day.”

When he speaks about the money to be made in the broom and mop business Robertson says, “We make a good living.” That is because he does not actually know how much he is making. His wife takes care of the money. “I work in the factory; she goes on the road and handles the money.”

The business has not changed much since 1933, when Cancienne rode his bicycle door-to-door in 18 parishes to take orders. After taking orders, he would load up his truck with the brooms and deliver them, once again, door-to-door.

Robertson still uses the same machines, some of which are over 100 years old, and he still uses the same basic system that Cancienne taught him in the 1940s when he worked for him for a short time after returning from World War II. After his short apprenticeship, Robertson says he never thought he would make another broom.

That changed in 1970.

“That is when my father-in-law died of pneumonia,” Robertson says. “He left all his stuff here and all these materials because he died so suddenly.” After examining the opportunity and having a few disagreements with his boss, Robertson decided to return to the broom making business.

“When I told my wife I was going to make brooms, she shrieked,” Robertson said, because according to her, her father never made any money in the broom business. “I told her I wasn’t going to run it like him,” he says. “She told me ‘I am going to let you have $1,700, that is it.” Robertson took a night job as a janitor at Nicholls State University to pay his bills, but spent his days making brooms. He has since retired from his janitorial duties but has never stopped making brooms.

Robertson says his toughest and most rewarding days in the business were when he was on the road trying to build a customer base.

“About one in 10,000 customers will have a complaint,” he says.

On one particular trip, a man told Robertson to leave and never come back. Robertson left and went to a regular customer across the street, but before he could get there the man’s wife met him in the street asking why he would not sell her any brooms. “That man over there put me out of your yard,” he explained. The woman then, after a very heated discussion with her husband, bought several brooms. “As I left I could hear her telling him, ‘Don’t you ever chase my broom man away again.’”

Another incident occurred in Labadieville after a homemaker accused Robertson of overcharging for his brooms and threatened to report him to the sheriff. After a short demonstration of his broom’s ability, she became a loyal customer until her death.

Soon, not only Robertson, but his wife also gained faith in the business. “When she saw I was going to stick with it, she went on the road to start selling the brooms for me,” Robertson says. When his wife started selling, his customer base rose significantly. He explains: “When I would knock at a house, I could see the (window) curtain move, but the women would not answer because a man was knocking. When I took her out to show her where to go, she would knock, then give them a ‘yoo-hoo.’ And the women would come out right away. She ended up making twice the route that I did.”

Although Robertson admires his mentor and runs things much the same way as he did, he has made several changes because, as he explains, “Every broom man has his own way of doing things.” Robertson gazes toward a line of old brooms displayed on the wall and pulls one down. “This was his broom. “He put hurl (an expensive straw) around it to look fancy. When I took over, I found a better way to do it. I cover the broom with hurl but use cheaper straw on the inside. That’s how you cut corners.”

Robertson has made the best brooms for the lowest cost ever since. “You always gotta be fighting in his business,” he says. He uses cloth scraps he gets for free from local businesses to wrap the bottom of the handles. He consolidated his sales to six parishes. He uses the entire straw shaft. He wraps wire only a portion of the way that his predecessor did. He attributes his success to these and many other tricks he has learned to keep quality up and prices down.

Robertson explains that his shrewd tactics have sometimes found him out of favor with other broom makers. “Ray and them ran a broom factory and they ran the wire all the way down,” Robertson says, avoiding last names only because he cannot remember.

“He came over here to tell me that I had to run the wire all the way down too. I asked him why. He told me I was breaking the broom man’s code. I told him a broom is straw wrapped around a handle; there is no code. About two weeks later I see Ray’s brother cutting the wire just like me.” Robertson tells the story with a laugh as if he has not heard himself tell it in many years.

Probably the most drastic change that Robertson has instituted is the introduction of mops, something unheard of in the days of Cleveland Cancienne. Robertson began making mops because, as he explains, “People need mops too.” He takes just as much pride in his mops as he does in his brooms.

“This is what he liked to make, brooms,” Robertson says, still clutching Cancienne’s signature broom from the display rack. “He hated making mops. But, before the 1970s people used to use a lot of brooms. Now, they don’t hardly use brooms; they use mops. This is where the money is.”

“We handle only the best,” Robertson boasts, referring the120 pound rolls of mop string that line the walls of his cluttered factory. He grabs a mop from a handmade rack filled with hundreds of broom and mops that takes up an entire wall of his shed. “See this is a polycotton blend. It will last forever. Plain cotton is cheap stuff; it will break away in no time.”

Robertson’s small frame leans over a large stack of broomsticks to get closer to the display of brooms. “This is straw from China,” Robertson says, grabbing another broom from the rack. “Now see that old wore out one over there.” He points to another racked broom. “My father-in-law made that one. The story behind that one is my son-in-law’s grandpa grew the straw for it. So the two grandpas had a hand in it.” Robertson continues pointing out each racked broom, revealing why it is important enough to hang on the wall. “That other one there is one of the first brooms I made.” Robertson finally points to the smallest broom on the wall. “That is the first broom my father-in-law ever made.”

Robertson has recently expanded his product line by adding pre-made broom heads with nylon bristles. “It still is about quality.” Robertson says, defending his decision to sell someone else’s product. “You gotta buy something good. If you buy something cheap, you customers will never buy from you again, and these are the best brushes you can buy.” The broom heads he uses are not available in stores.

Over the years, Robertson has take special requests of unique brooms. He even did what he could to assist the Nicholls baseball team while working there as a janitor. In the 1970s, when specialty brooms were scarce he handmade whiskbrooms for the umpires to sweep off home plate. “I was just watching the game one day, and somebody pointed me out to the umpire saying, ‘That’s the broom man; he can make you some little whiskbrooms.” Robertson headed straight to his factory and made the smallest broom he could. “He (the umpire) enjoyed those little whiskbrooms so much he paid $5 a piece for them. That is the most profit I have ever made on a broom.”

His antique equipment will soon be still, because broommaking season begins with the warm weather of spring. “A broom man hates winter,” Robertson says, upset that it is September and getting too cold to make a quality broom. “The straw is stiff when it is cold.” At 76, Robertson is anxiously waiting for another broom making season to begin so he can get back to doing what he loves.

The future of Cancienne Broom and Mop Factory is a question that Robertson is unprepared to answer. “My son-in-law can make brooms just like me,” Robertson says, hinting at the possibility of what might happen. “But, he doesn’t like to make brooms. He likes to make mops. I don’t know what he is gonna do when I retire.”

Robertson speaks about retirement, but it is easy to see that it will be hard for him to put the craft aside for good. He has made broom for over half a century and still spends time every day in his backyard factory, perfecting his trade. Whether he passes the businesses on to his son-in-law, in much the same way his father-in-law passed the business on to him, remains to be seen.

In today’s prefab, computer driven, conglomerated, mass produced, high-speed,instant gratification society there is still a place for something as atypical as Cancienne Broom and Mop Factory. It remains to be seen if this type of business can find its niche in the future marketplace, but here is one promising indication. Robertson’s son-in-law has begun building brooms and mops in the original Cancienne factory, just one street over from the current location.

One day he could be hanging one of his own creations alongside the rest of Cancienne’s prized.

Justin Martin can be reached at (985) 876-3008 or justin@tri-parishtimes.com.