Before 1908, a suction vacuum to clean homes was a cumbersome gas machine on wheels.
It was a marvel in London; hoses clambered through windows like tentacles, sucking crumbs for the upper crust.
Commoners owned mechanical sweepers at best that merely stirred dust, as asthma sufferer and Canton department store janitor James Murray Spangler knew firsthand.
To assuage a relentless cough, the 60-year-old assembled a broom handle, soapbox, pillowcase and fan motor. The contraption was the first upright, portable, electric vacuum cleaner and would become a multi-million-dollar business under William H. Hoover.
Spangler was no ordinary custodian; he’d modified a grain harvester when he was about 40 and designed a velocipede wagon. But his suction sweeper was revolutionary.
Spangler quit his job and started Electric Suction Sweeper Co. but sold the patent to Hoover in 1908 to help with finances. Hoover kept Spangler as operations superintendent and in 1922 renamed it Hoover Co.
Why It Matters: Spangler’s design was the start of portable vacuums and the end of countless hours brushing over rugs with a dustpan.
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