Many products designed to make life and work easier emerged from the American/British Industrial Revolution. Of course one of them was the Wonderful VACUUM CLEANER!! :o)

Today the vacuum cleaner is taken for granted but its only been in the last 100s years that the vacuum cleaner has been around.
Why basic carpet sweepers/hand pump operated vacuum type machines started to appear around the 1860s it was not and till 1901 when a British man Mr Herbert Cecil Booth invented the first mechanical vacuum cleaner. He came across the idea when he had seen a machine "blew" the dust around but thought that sucking up the dust and collecting it a cloth bag.

He proved the idea by placing a hanky on a settee/sofa and sucking with his mouth,and then trying to suck up as much dust as he could onto the hanky. Upon seeing the dust and dirt collected on the underside of the hanky he realized the idea could work well:o)

Once Mr Booth built his vacuum cleaner which was 1st powered buy a petrol engine (later replaced with a Electric Motor) it was so large it was pulled around by a horse drawn carriage.
Gaining the royal seal of approval, Booth's vacuum cleaner was used to clean the carpets of Westminster Abbey prior to Edward VII's coronation in 1901. Now that was good advertising!!;o)

Booth started the British Vacuum Cleaner Company BVC which later became known as the Goblin vacuum cleaner company.

As so in the USA in 1907, James Murray Spangler, a janitor from Canton, Ohio, USA invented the first practical, portable Upright vacuum cleaner.

Once he had patented the idea but could not afford to produce the machine himself he sold the patent in 1908 to William Henry Hoover.

Mr Hoover then sold the machine under the name "The Electric Suction Sweeper Company" their first vacuum was the 1908 Model "O"
Not to long after he rebranded the company HOOVER which we all know of today.


Many vacuum Cleaner companies started around the same time like Electrolux, Royal, Kirby, Eureka, Nilfisk etc which are well known around the world today.

The main types of vacuum cleaner are Upright,Cylinder aka cannister,Hand held,
The main type of dust collection are Dust bags,used buy Kirby,Sebo,Oreck etc
Bagless using cyclonic separation, used by Dyson,some vax and Hoovers etc.
Water filtration used by Rainbow.

Up to the 2nd World war the Vacuum Cleaner was a luxury item.But after the war the vacuum cleaner became far more common among the Middle classes and filtered through to the working classes in the 50s.

Over the years vacuum cleaners have improved quiet a bit but the general overall machine has not changed to much.
Why general performance has improved like air wattage and Filtration allot but not all vacuum cleaners have lost there build quality only lasting a few years and parts becoming obsolete quickly. But there are vacuum cleaners out there with high quality still built in like Kirby

But just think what it would be like if there was no vacuum cleaners.
Most Houses in the western world was dirt filled places and flea infested.

Most people have memories of vacuum cleaners when growning up or older people when starting out with there new lives when setting up a new home.

Please feel free to view some of my vacuum cleaners from different eras and see which ones you remember....Enjoy!!