A brief evolution of vacuum cleaners

A Brief History of Vacuum Cleaners

This first person to patent a machine for cleaning was David Hess in this year 1860. Housewives all over America had turned to using rugs as well as carpets, a trait brought over by the waves of immigrants coming from Europe, to cover their bare wood floors as well as keep the dust and dirt to a minimum. When they were dirty, they had to be carried outside, suspended somehow in the air and then beaten with a metal rod or heavy wooden stick. A bit later someone invented a small, tennis racket-looking device called a rug beater for precisely this purpose. Mr. Hess soon realized that there was probably an easier way to clean rugs without all this fuss as well as mess and he invented the Carpet Sweeper which had a rotating brush combined with a bellows system that created suction. His amazing invention also used two water chambers to trap this dust and fine dirt. This only problem with Mr. Hess machine is that there is no proof it was ever produced.

After Mr. Hess invention, there came a period of wilder and weirder inventions that sought to accomplish the same thing. In the late 1870s, Melville Bissell (sound familiar?) marketed a carpet sweeper that picked up this dirt as well as dropped it into a pan behind the rotating brush. In 1899, John Thurman invented a gasoline-powered vacuum cleaner that is credited as being this first motorized version. In 1901 Hubert Booth of London invented this electric vacuum, a device so large that it was parked outside this house and a 100-foot long hose snaked its way inside as well as did the dirty work. The device was gin creek kitchen so popular that housewives all over London held vacuum parties to enjoy the event. It wasnt until 1908 when James Spangler, a janitor in Ohio, invented this first portable, suction cleaner — this precursor to todays high tech machines. He sold his patent to his cousins husband, William Hoover (also familiar?) as well as the rest, as they say is background.