Vacuum Cleaner
As mass-produced carpet s became widely available and affordable during the 1800s, the need for an effective method of cleaning carpets grew pressing. The carpet sweeper was one solution. Devices for blowing or sucking dirt and dust out of carpets were another approach.
Before the advent of electricity, machines that used the vacuum principle to suck up dirt were hand-or foot-powered, with bellows for pumping air. Most of these required two people for operation, one to power the bellows and the other to run the nozzle. Some cleaners ran on compressed air; but since they failed to recapture much of what they blew out of carpets, they served mainly to redistribute dust and dirt.
The first practical suction vacuum cleaner usable in homes was patented in 1901 by Herbert C. Booth of England. While attending a demonstration of a compressed-air machine that blew dust out, Booth became convinced that suction was the correct method to use. He is supposed to have tested his theory by applying his mouth to the upholstered back of his chair in a fancy London restaurant. Sucking in, Booth extracted a chestful of dust. He promptly designed a vaccuum cleaner with an effective dust filter, powered by a five-horsepower piston motor. While Booth's machine worked well, it was extremely heavy, large, and awkward. It worked best when mounted on a wagon, with long hoses run through the windows of a building from the outside.
At the same time across the ocean, two Americans invented their own versions of the vacuum cleaner. Corrine Dufour of Georgia developed an "Electric Sweeper and Dust Gatherer" that used an electrically-powered fan to suck dust into a wet sponge. A New Jersey plumber, David E. Kenney, devised a very large suction machine that could be installed in the basement of a building with pipes leading to outlets in each room.
Once the small electric motor was developed, the small, convenient home vacuum cleaner became possible. A down-on-his-luck Ohio inventor named James Murray Spangler was toiling as a department-store janitor in 1907. Plagued with a cough caused by the dust stirred up by the inefficient carpet sweepers he was forced to use, Spangler decided to invent a lighter, more efficient, easier to use machine. His prototype was patched together from a soap box, an old electric fan, goat bristles, a broom handle, and a pillowcase as the bag. Spangler patented his invention in 1908, but his Electric Suction Sweeper Company was not a financial success.
Spangler's luck changed when he sold one of his cleaners to a cousin. The cousin's husband, William H. Hoover, became president of the new Hoover Company, with Spangler as superintendent. Hoover soon noticed that his product sold only when it was demonstrated by someone who could show a potential customer how to use it. The door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesperson was born and secured the Hoover vacuum cleaner's position as the industry leader.
The Hoover machine, like all others of the time, was an upright. The first cylinder or tank style vacuum machine originated in Sweden and was brought to the United States in 1924 by Gustaf Sahlin. This Electrolux glided along the floor and featured a flexible hose that made it possible for the first time to vacuum hard-to-reach places plus furniture and draperies. The portable, cordless, handheld vacuum cleaner with rechargeable power handle was introduced in the mid-1970s by Black and Decker. Its improved version, the Dustbuster, came out in 1979 and became instantly popular.
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