Away with the crumbs!

The exhibition presented table brooms from all over Europe with their different shapes and forms and provided insights into the fascinating diversity of an almost forgotten table culture. The oldest exhibits date from around 1880, and the style and decoration of the individual table brooms reveal the trend of the particular period from which they originate: Historicism, Wilhelminianism and Art Nouveau characterized the designs and always gave the table setting a particularly elegant touch. In Austria and South Tyrol, painted table brooms with large sweeps were predominantly produced and used. For a long time, table brooms were mainly made of solid copper, brass, sterling silver or wood. From the middle of the 20th century, material value and decoration increasingly receded into the background in favor of functional design. In the 1930s, bakelite was used, and from the 1950s, plastic and plastic bristles. With the triumph of the washing machine, table brooms disappeared completely from everyday life. Only in the upscale gastronomy the small flat, easy to store table broom can still be found today. The most modern and for the time being last variant of the long development of the table brooms is the battery vacuum cleaner with charging station.

The exhibition "Away with the crumbs! Table brooms from different countries" was organized by the Touriseum together with the regional school for the hospitality industry "Savoy" in Meran and in cooperation with the Gütersloh City Museum.