The Earliest Vacuum Cleaners

The first patent for what we could call a vacuum cleaner was submitted by American inventor Daniel Hess in 1860. Unlike previous carpet sweepers, it incorporated a draft of air to draw in dust. Unfortunately it involved a hand-operated bellows which limited its usefulness and the machine was probably never built.

In 1869 another American, Ives McGaffey, created a carpet cleaner that used a fan, but it was still difficult to use and expensive. The “Whirlwind” nearly drove the company that built it out of business.

The next major innovation was the gasoline-powered cleaner. John S. Thurman of St. Louis created the “pneumatic carpet renovator” in 1898. This machine was the size of a horse drawn carriage and blew air to dislodge dirt. Thurman made house calls at $4 per visit (about $110-$115 in today’s money).

The “Puffing Billy”

In 1901 British engineer Hubert Cecil Booth saw a gas-powered carpet cleaner at a London trade show and before long had improved upon it by creating a machine that sucked dirt rather than blowing air. The “Puffing Billy” was painted red and gold like a fire engine and drawn by a horse. To clean a building hoses were snaked through windows and doors. Apparently a cleaning cost the same as the annual wages of a junior domestic maid!

In 1902 Booth’s machine cleaned Westminster Abbey for the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. The royals then purchased machines for both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. The “Puffing Billy” cleaned the girders of Crystal Palace after an outbreak of spotted fever during World War I and it became the first central vac when it was installed directly into houses… but only large, expensive ones. After all it involved a basement bellows chamber and copper tubing throughout the house.

Portable Vacuum Cleaners

James Murray Spangler, a department store janitor in Ohio, came up with the next important innovations. He used an electric motor to rotate the brush and a pillowcase to collect the dirt. In 1907 Spangler patented his invention, quit his job, and started the Electric Suction Sweeper Company. Unfortunately the company struggled financially and Spangler sold his patent to William Hoover, the husband of his cousin Susan.

Hoover made the portable vacuum cleaner a commercial success. Some innovations were placing the vacuum cleaner in a steel box, designing attachments for the hose, adding disposable filter bags, and creating the first upright vacuum (1926).

“Recent” Innovations

In the 1930s industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss streamlined vacuum cleaners by covering the inner workings with a smooth Bakelite hood. The machines finally became popular with the masses after World War II. The main improvements since the 1930s have been machines that are cleaner (due to HEPA filters), smaller, and sleeker. The cordless vacuum appeared in the 1970s and the Electrolux Trilobite, the first robotic vacuum, in 1997, followed by the Roomba in 2002.

Sources

• “The invention of the vacuum cleaner, from horse-drawn to high tech” via Science Museum
• “Invention and History of Vacuum Cleaners”
• “This Sucks: The Messy History of the Vacuum Cleaner” by Matt Blitz via Popular Mechanics
• “The Vacuum Cleaner Was Harder to Invent Than You Might Think” by Kat Eschner via Smithsonian Magazine
• “Get Sucked In With These 11 Facts About the History of the Vacuum Cleaner” by Janet Burns via Mental Floss