History Of Vacuum Cleaners

Vacuum cleaners have become staples inside the house. Not only does it make cleaning faster but it also ensures that the dust will stay inside the vacuum bag unlike with ordinary duster when the dust will just fly off some place else.

You use vacuum everyday but do you know how it was developed Read on and find out how this little piece of great invention came about.

The first cleaner that used the same system as that of the vacuum cleaner was created in 1865 in Chicago. Called the Whirlwind, it was hand-powered. But it was only in 1901 when the vacuum system was patented by British engineer H. Cecil Booth through a cleaner called Puffing Billy. He got the inspiration for the device from an almost similar cleaner that blew off dust from chairs. He thought that it would be even better if the device sucked it off instead.

Testing his idea, he laid a handkerchief on a chair and then sucked it off. Upon seeing the dust that adhered to the handkerchief, he realized that his idea had merit. Puffing Billy is a rather large device that needs to be transported. Suction is done by an internal combustion device that burns gasoline. Because of its size, his invention did not click.

In 1905, Walter Griffiths patented a similar device that is smaller in size. He called it the “Griffith's Improved Vacuum Apparatus for Removing Dust from Carpets." Manually operated, a person need to compress a bellows-like contraption in order to suck in the dust, which will pass through a flexible pipe. This is perhaps the closest thing at that time to the modern vacuum cleaner.

A year after, American janitor James Murray Spangler, created an electric version of the vacuum cleaner with the use of a fan, a bax and a pillow case. This seems simple enough but it really worked. When Spangler sold the idea to his cousin Hoover, the company Hoover Harness and Leather Goods Factory produced the device. Up to this date, Hoover remains to be one of the leading manufacturers of household goods in the country. The vacuum cleaner idea made him really wealthy.