Who Invented The Vacum Cleaner

You can find rug cleaning devices going back as far as the 1860s and if you throw William Hoover into the mix you have a variety of devices with each claiming to be the first inventor of the vacuum cleaner. We have to go back to the 1800's to understand what people had in their homes and how they went about cleaning their floors and rugs.

Probably rugs were first used in homes to keep down on the dust and dirt being tracked into homes. And in case you don't know one of the first methods of cleaning those rugs was to hang them outside and beat them with a stick or a broom.

And then a fellow named David Hess came up with a carpet sweeper which had rotating brushes and a bellows system to provide suction but was this a vacuum cleaner. But since no David Hess carpet sweeper can be found anywhere today we don't know if David Hess's invention ever got off paper and into action. There are actually some very similar carpet sweepers being sold on today's market.

And then along came Melville Bissell who's name will sound familiar to you if you know much at all about vacuum cleaners. It was Bissell who invented the first hand pushed carpet sweeper that we know was put into production and sold all over the United States. It consisted of rollers that swept dirt and dust up into a holding pan and you could take it outside and dump out the dirt and dust. But there still was no motor or suction action going on.

It was not until 1899 when the first motorized vacuum cleaner was introduced by a man named John Thurman. A few years later a man named Herbert Booth of London England invented the first electric powered vacuum cleaner that really worked. The only problem with that first electric powered vacuum cleaner was that it had to be brought to the house on a trailer and parked outside. A hose was run inside the house and then the carpets could be vacuumed.

The first man to invent a vacuum cleaner similar to one sold today was John Spangler in 1908. His carpet cleaner was very successful and was a huge hit with the public. Spangler owned the patent on the product but he lacked the funds to keep it in production so he sold it to a man who's name we all have heard of William Hoover. Yes the man who's name became famously associated with the home vacuum cleaner. The name Hoover and vacuum cleaner have become interchangeable and in some parts of the world vacuum cleaners became known as Hoovers.

It was not long before vacuum cleaners were being sold door to door. You paid $3.00 to $5.00 down and $2-$5 a month and you had your very own home vacuum cleaner to clean your homes carpets with.

Over 100 years later the modern home vacuum cleaner is very much like its early cousins that were invented over 100 years ago. But in today's market we now have new innovative products like the robotic Roomba that vacuums the carpets all by its self and their have even been models developed now that not only vacuum carpets but also mop floors. It really makes me wonder where vacuum cleaners will be in 100 years from now. Maybe there will be a vacuum cleaner that cleans the carpet and keeps up with your daily calender. Maybe in the future people will be living like the Jetsons.

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