Here in the United Kingdom, no one refers to a vacuum cleaner as such. They are normally call ‘hoovers’ and that is because the particular brand of vacuum, the Hoover, has been the most commonly used vacuum for years. Of course today there are hundreds of different brands and types of vacuums; nonetheless, they are all called the ‘hoover’. Funny enough, it is also used as a verb. “I need you to ‘hoover’ up the landing please.” I once even knew a pet pig and his name was ‘Hoover’ and you can use your imagination on why he was so aptly called this.
The history of an actual vacuum cleaner goes all the way back to the 19th century. It is said that the first one was invented in Chicago, Illinois in the mid to late 1800’s. They named it the Whirlwind and it had to be hand cranked to get it going. Inventors are such cool people and it is really quite reasonable to think that Mr. Ives McGaffey thought he was really on to something with his first vacuum. And indeed he was.
At the turn of the century, with electricity in place, Mr. Corinne Dufour from Georgia in the USA kicked out his new invention of the electric carpet sweeper. Not to be outdone, a savvy and clever Mr Hubert Cecil Booth made his own creation of a powered vacuum cleaner. It was driven by oil and pulled by horses as he went from house to house offering his new fangled house cleaning method.
The best is yet to come as Mr James Spangler slapped together a fan, box, a little suction device, rotating brush and pillowcase. He surmised that the rotating brush would disturb the dust and loosen dirt and he was exactly right. His invention would ruffle up the dirt and dust and suck it into the pillowcase used for containment. Spangler had literally hit ‘pay dirt’ with his new contraption. In fact, there was a gentleman know by the name W.H. Hoover who thought it was such a great idea that he bought Mr Spangler’s patent off him and started what is known today as Hoover Vacuum Cleaners. This was way back in 1908 and he named his first one the Model 0. Clever man. Well, this is where the name of all vacuum cleaners in the United Kingdom got their name although, oddly enough, it was not Hoover who first patented the first electric vacuum cleaner in the United Kingdom but it was a man by the name P.A. Fisker. So, appropriately, we should be saying, ‘get to fisking the lounge’ or ‘get out the fisk and get to cleaning wench!’