James Spangler, not an engineer but a janitor from Canton, Ohio, was troubled by a chronic cough. He felt it was the result of the sweeper he was using to clean the floor of the department store where he worked. It kicked up dirt into the air where he was working.

Spangler rigged an old fan motor up to a soap box he had stapled to a broom handle. To collect the dust that the machine kicked up, he attached a pillow case as well. It was the first simultaneously portable and electric vacuum cleaner.

Later, Spangler developed a cloth filter bag and cleaning attachments, the first to come up with these ideas. His patent followed in 1908. From there, he started the Electric Suction Sweeper Company to sell his machines.

His cousin’s husband, William Hoover, started the Hoover Company and bought Spangler’s patent rights. Spangler continued to design for the Hoover Company and William Hoover was the financial backer. The duo hit success.

Hoover developed a great marketing plan, the 10-day free in-home trial, launching the fledgling company into history. Today, Hoover is one of the best-known names in vacuum sales and it all started with a janitor who was fed up with a sweeper.

The first floor-cleaning invention by John Thurman was a horse-drawn system that he took door to door in St. Louis. In 1903, the $4 price of his services was actually quite expensive. But, people paid to have him come clean their floors anyway.

Thurman developed a gasoline-powered vacuum in 1899, patented on October 3rd of that year. It used compressed air to blast away the dirt.

In 1906, Thurman got even more high-tech with his central cleaning system, installed into people’s homes, that also used compressed air to blow dirt into a receptacle. What is interesting is that the machine did not, in essence, create a vacuum. No suction at all led to a ruling on a patent litigation that Thurman did not have claim to the invention of the motorized vacuum cleaner as his was not truly a vacuum.

That being said, for his time Thurman was ahead of the rest, offering homeowners a new way to clean their floors. And without his advancements in floor-cleaning technology driving the competition onward, it is likely that we would not have progressed as far as we have today in vacuum technology.

The next version was a horse-drawn gasoline-powered floor-cleaning device. Unlike a vacuum, however, it used pressurized air to blast dirt into a receptacle. The inventor, John Thurman, later lost a patent lawsuit because his device was not a “vacuum” but an air-blowing machine.

Perhaps the first true motorized vacuum was designed by a man named Hubert Cecil Booth. Booth was a British engineer who, perhaps inspired by John Thurman’s work, developed a horse-drawn machine. However, Booth’s was very different from Thurman’s.

Booth’s machine actually vacuumed (sucked up) dirt from the floor. It was a very large machine driven by petrol. The machine had long hoses that were pulled in through the windows of a home to vacuum each room.

The machine was not nearly as efficient as today’s vacuums, but it worked to some degree. He demonstrated his machine in a restaurant the year he got his patent, 1901, and amazed onlookers as the machine sucked up dirt. Today, central vacuum systems and upright vacuums alike owe a nod to the invention of Hubert Cecil Booth.

Today, we have wind tunnel vacuums, handhelds, and even a robot vacuum that cleans the floor for you while you get something else done. There are decorative colored cone vacuums you can keep out in the room of your choice. And you can spend anywhere from $30 to $2,000 on a variety of different makes and models.

It all had to start somewhere. Vacuum owners of today owe a nod of thanks to the man who got us going with the first patented vacuum. In 1869, Ives W. McGaffey was issued a patent for his “sweeping machine.”

Made of wood and canvas, mainly, the machine had a hand-operated fan that you had to crank while pushing the machine across the floor. The American Carpet Cleaning Company, founded by McGaffey, produced the machine called “Whirlwind.”

As most of these old vacuums were sold in and around Chicago, the majority were wiped out in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Of the two known Whirlwinds to survive, one is located in the Hoover Historical Center for public viewing.