In 1907, James Murray Spangler, a janitor in a Canton, Ohio department store, concluded that the carpet sweeper and broom he used were the source of his asthmatic cough so he began to experiment with a better type of sweeping apparartus. He salvaged an old fan motor and attached it to a soap box affixed to a broom handle. Using a pillow case as a dust collector on the contraption, Spangler invented a portable electric vacuum cleaner.
He then improved his basic model — the first to use both a cloth filter bag and cleaning attachments — and received a patent in 1908. He formed the Electric Suction Sweeper Company.
One of the first buyers was a cousin, whose husband, William H. Hoover, later became the president of the Hoover Company, with Spangler as superintendent. Sluggish sales were given a kick by Hoover’s 10 day, free home trial, and eventually there was a Hoover vacuum cleaner in nearly every home.
Source: The Cyber Space Vacuum Cleaner Museum
