• Question: who invented the hoover

    Asked by staceyt to Angela, Gabriele, Karen, Shane on 20 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Shane Mc Guinness

      Shane Mc Guinness answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      Good question Stacey,
      The vacuum cleaner was invented by Hubert Cecil Booth in 1901 in England. However, a Hoover is a type of vacuum cleaner made by the Hoover company, which was set up in 1908!

    • Photo: Karen McCarthy

      Karen McCarthy answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      Aha, the classic hoover question – isn’t it strange how the best known brand of a thing, becomes the most common name for it! Like your nan always calling all crisps Taytos! 🙂

    • Photo: Gabriele De Chiara

      Gabriele De Chiara answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      Actually vacuum cleaner predecessors, according to Wikipedia, were invented in 1860 in America by Daniel Hess. They did not have a motor but they worked with handles to be rotated manually (how exhausting!). Shane is right in that Booth invented the first motorised vecuum cleaner.

    • Photo: Angela Stevenson

      Angela Stevenson answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      I like your question Stacey 🙂 Great job! Looks like the first hoover was invented in 1866 by Ives W. McGaffney. He created a manual vacuum that worked by using a hand crank attached to bellows to suck the air from a tube. That sounds tedious hey! This method of “cleaning” remained the standard way of hoovering until the vacuum filter was introduced by Hubert Cecil Booth in 1901.. which lead’s us to the hoovers that we have today. Oh one last interesting fact, in 1938, 27 % of homes with electricity owned a hoover and ten years later this went up to 40%! Today, 98% of homes have a hoover. What a useful invention. Hope that helps 🙂

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