Saturday, June 25, 2011

Another Edwardian Invention

Think of Edwardian women next time you do the vacuuming. They were so thankful for this new invention that vacuum cleaner parties became very popular!

The first power-driven vacuum cleaner was invented by H.Cecil Booth, a British engineer in 1901. It was so large that it had to be mounted on horse-drawn carts. Using it involved extending the 100-foot hose through the windows! Before the invention of this modern new convenience, cleaning machines blew or brushed the dirt away. The new machine was used for all sorts of strange jobs, such as cleaning the dusty girders of the Crystal Palace. Booth formed his own company, specialising in industrial vacuum cleaners.

Murray Spangler invented the first electric vacuum cleaner in Ohio. William Henry Hoover's wife was so impressed with it that she showed it to her husband. He bought the patent rights and he also formed his own company. In fact, his name practically became synonymous with the vacuum cleaner.

Unfortunately, I couldn't watch this video. Some of you will be able to, however.

Edwardian Farm - The Vacuum Cleaner

5 comments:

Tommy Ticklers said...

I can highly reccomend Edwardian Farm - if you haven't seen it already, you can get it on dvd. Although it is, as the title suggests, set on a farm, it covers a lot of other industries which farm workers branched out to in the Edwardian era to earn extra money, including working in a large house (from the episode which the vacuum cleaner features in), fishing, mining etc

Viola said...

Hi Tommy,

Thank you very much for your comment. I will definitely try to get Edwardian Farm!

I also find your blog very interesting so I'm going to follow it and provide a link here.

Richard Hannay said...

Thanks - i'll put a link to your blog too ('Tommy Ticklers' was my other blogger name, but have worked out how to combine them now!)

There is also a book accompanying the Edwardian Farm series, which I haven't got, but is supposed to be really good

Viola said...

Thank you. I also like the Richard Hannay books and series - I must look into buying them as well!

I have been watching 'Upstairs, Downstairs' again. I think that I've lost the sixth box! Do you know how many boxes are in the series?

Richard Hannay said...

The Hannay series are super - I finished 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' yesterday for about the sixth time, it's a slim version so fits perfectly in my filofax.

Regarding Upstairs Downstairs, I thought there were only five series, so would have thought that would only equate to five box sets? Unfortunately don't have it on DVD, yet!