Vacuum Cleaner History

In 1907, James Murray Spangler, a janitor from Canton, Ohio, invented the first practical, portable vacuum cleaner. Unable to produce the design himself due to lack of funding, he sold the patent in 1908 to William Henry Hoover who had Spangler's machine redesigned with a steel casing, casters, and attachments.

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Closed Caption:

in 1907 James Spangler had a tough job
he was the night janitor at a department
store
there was a big problem Spangler had
asthma and the rugs were very dusty
it was a terrible environment for him to
be in because nightly fits of coughing
and described simply as fits of coughing
meant that 10-15 minutes of his time was
sitting down on the floor coughing
trying not to cough up the line
the early nineteen hundreds was harsh
for anyone who had asthma dust was
everywhere
the streets and sidewalks
canton ohio we're not paid that with
dirt streets so people shoes and boots
brought a lot of this dirt into
department store
the carpet sweeper itself a primitive
brush on wheels with a dustpan only made
things worse for someone with badlands
Spangler was desperate to develop
something better
mr. Spengler dream big dreams and he
really dreamed of becoming
world-famous inventor Spangler was not
famous but he'd already invented some
interesting devices
he had patience for a grain harvester
and of the lasa peed wagon but he hasn't
made much money from either idea
once you invent something the next thing
you have to do is sell it
therein lies is probably because it was
a natural salesman
he also naturally didn't
funds to be able to manufacture things
that he invented
so he was stuck doing menial jobs to
make ends meet
six nights a week for pennies an hour
but all those hours working the night
shift gave Spangler a lot of time to
think
his mind was always working as any
inventors mine does the smallest of
problems
he would think of ways to solve them or
make them easier
then one night it suddenly dawned on him
the ceiling fan was powered by a small
motor
but what if the motor could be used to
power a carpet sweeper and make pushing
and pulling easier
he unscrewed the fan blades took them
off and set the motor into the carpet
sweeper and where the blades whir took a
leather belt and put it in a figure
eight to the brush
how are propelling the brush
Spangler founded adding a motor made the
sweeper a lot easier to push
however he created more dust than ever
support down
so it keeps the dust straight up out of
the machine into the air which he had to
breathe
Spangler than needed to design something
to direct and contain all the dust
something such as the blades from the
ceiling fan
enclosed a smaller version of the blades
in a tin box that was attached to the
sweeper
the motor rotated the brush and beat the
dirt from the carpet
the revolving blades then sucked the
debris upwards straight into a pillow
case that Spangler had found in a linen
closet
his time to empty signal was when the
fan motor blew the pillowcase off the
back of the Machine through the back
pressure
oh stop md it but he needed to make a
few adjustments so he kept using the
department store at his test laboratory
he started to perfect it he would make
the fans out of a different shape he
would make the opening different
so night after night after night it
started to read
and he can see the cover come back to
the carpets
Spangler had invented the electric
carpet sweeper
what he came up with in that department
store cobbled together from bits and
things that he had met janitor's closet
are still today the perfect way of
getting a carpet completely clean
or you missed the sport
in August 1908 James Spangler sold his
invention to a relative
William hoover and we've been having our
floors ever since