A vacuum cleaner is a device that uses suction, and often mechanical agitation, to remove dirt and other debris from carpets, hard floors and other surfaces, collecting the debris into a bag or container. Early manual versions using hand-operated bellows appeared in the 1860s, and motorized designs followed around 1900; the English inventor Walter Griffiths built an early portable domestic model in Birmingham in 1905. In the United States, James Murray Spangler patented the first portable electric vacuum cleaner in 1908 and sold the design to William Henry Hoover, whose company commercialized it beginning with the 1908 Model O and gave the machine its common name in Britain and elsewhere.
Facts
YearEarlier manual (1860, 1868) and blown-air powered (1898) designs preceded it; 1901 is the first powered SUCTION design, independently by Hubert Cecil Booth (Britain) and David T. Kenney (United States). SignificanceHubert Cecil Booth's 1901 suction-based design, drawing air through a cloth filter to trap dust, established the operating principle that still underlies most household vacuum cleaners. 1 Sources
1. Vacuum Cleaner (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHistory > Powered vacuum cleaners, Booth/Kenney sentence
In 1901, powered vacuum cleaners using suction were invented independently by British engineer Hubert Cecil Booth and American inventor David T. Kenney.
History > Powered vacuum cleaners, Puffing Billy sentence
Booth's horse-drawn combustion-engine-powered 'Puffing Billy', maybe derived from Thurman's blown-air design, relied upon just suction with air pumped through a cloth filter
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