The Evolution of the Vacuum Cleaner

As I watch my ‘Karcher RC3000 Robo Cleaner’ navigate its way between the legs of my dining room table, collecting up little fragments of dust loyally as it goes; I am reminded of the ever present (MSE-6 droid) carton like droids that buzz around the walk ways of the death star.

Although I know that the RC3000 won’t stop an intruder from entering my home or teach my kid algebra, I am comforted by this little dust soldier’s routine as it returns from its mission and back to its docking station by the cat tray to relieve itself of it collected dirt and recharge.

Most of us own a vacuum cleaner or ‘Hoover’; be it a heavy old Dyson you picked up on eBay or the little numatic Henry that was left by the last tenant, and considering 6.5 million vacuums were sold in the UK in the last 12 months, it looks like our infatuation with tidiness is on the increase.

But what did we do before our little flexible friends fell all around like the dust of time?

Believe it or not, before vacuum cleaners became part of our general routine, cleaning the home was done with cloths and brushes. House keepers performed exhausting activities such as the beating of rugs and the physical moving of heavy furniture, all of which would throw up more dust than it cleaned.

In 1868, a device called the ‘whirlwind’ was created to make life easier for the lowly house frau. It was invented by a man from Chicago called Ives McGaffney, and was a hand cranked device that could be guided across a floor and gathered up dust as it went. Although the company sadly failed, this was first to be patented and the designs that followed only improved upon the original.

One vacuum cleaner invention was so large that it needed to be moved by horse drawn cart and reputedly removed so much dirt from the houses of London that it was credited for ending the plague.

The Melville Bissell vacuum was created by Bissell to make his wife’s life easier, which it invariably did, as after his death she took control of his company and it made her one of the most powerful business woman in America.

Then in 1907 a janitor with allergies called James M Spangler mocked up an electric cleaner, using a fan, a box and a pillowcase. Unfortunately for poor Mr Spangler he did not have the funds to produce the design himself. He sold the design to his wife’s cousin, the soon to be better known ‘W.H.Hoover’ who went on to become a household name, amounting a fortune of over $33 Billion, which he subsequently lost once the market had been saturated by similar products.

“Dust” has become very popular recently via Phillip Pullman and his cult classics the “Dark Matter Trilogy” which won him the prestigious ‘Whitbread Book of the Year Award’ in 2001. In the books “Dust” is a substance that represents consciousness. So is dust so bad and is all this cleaning propaganda, just a lot of fuss about nothing?

Quentin Crisp reportedly hated dusting and said that “After three years, it (dust) doesn’t get any worse”. Evidence however speaks to the contrary as 1000 dust particles settle on a square metre of domestic surface every hour, containing millions of skin cells, human hair and dust mites! I don’t know about you but the idea that 20mg of my own skin falls on work surfaces around my flat makes me slightly nauseas.

So it seams that the vacuum cleaner is needed after all. So when did the humble vacuum cleaner upright, with its matronly static frame and inflexible design, start to take on a cult status?

The bagless system using a cylinder was the first nail in the standard uprights coffin for the big clumsy machines with bags; it had been patented back in 1959, but bizarrely wasn’t developed for personal use until the early 1990’s. The first cyclone Dyson was sold in Japan under another name in 1980 at an incredible cost of $1,800. That price tag plummeted, however, a decade later when to was sold under the Dyson label in the UK for an affordable £200.

The latest Dysons look like more like the creation of H.R.Giger than something we use to Hoover the stairs. The designs are effortless, with smooth curves and neat little ergonomic groves to click accessories in place and carry case wheels that serve to help and not hinder.

I was indoctrinated into the Dyson cult two years ago when a dog hair situation made me rush out and buy my first Dyson the ‘DC 11 Allergy’ in a cute light green, second hand for £100, and we were very happy together for a long time. It wasn’t until I found the RC3000 – more of a cleaning pet than a vacuum, that I even considered upgrading my machine.

My little robot friend is off again on his mission to planet clean and although both me and him know the out come of his constant battle, I am sure that his children will look back on these days as we do on the old uprights, disbelieving and scrutinising their worth and wondering why such a life changing product as the humble vacuum could be so often overlooked.