If you're a vintage vacuum collector or are thinking about it, you really should know more about the history of vacuum cleaners. There is a lot of interesting information available out there.

Once you start doing research on the vacuum it gets very intriguing.

Imagine your vacuum cleaner so large it has to be operated by two people outside of the home. In 1902 a fellow by the name of H. Cecil Booth created the first power operated vacuum cleaner called the "Puffing Billy." It was powered by an oil engine that used large hoses that had to be fed into the house through doors and windows. This was of course quite a monstrosity and not very efficient  but it was entertaining enough to invite the neighbors over to watch.

Soon after, somewhere between 1850 and 1900, new patents for these vintage vacuums were popping up everywhere. Several continents had decided to get in this new contraption, from Germany, France, America and Britain, just to name a few. Maybe you will recognize some of these names and then maybe not. It was a very long time ago. There was the Dust Killer, Little Giant and of course one called, Apparatus for Removing Dust. Not very original but it did state the facts.

So there were hand powered vacs, the old bellows system, gas powered, oil powered and even foot powered. It certainly was a lot of work just to clean a carpet. Imagine pushing around a 100 pound hand powered machine once or twice a week. Who needs exercise when you have house work to do.

Sometime in the early 20's these vintage vacuum cleaners were coming of age. They were more light weight, more powerful and a little more pleasant to operate. Now we have robotic vacuums that can run unsupervised in our homes. We've come a long way baby!

This is what makes a vacuum so interesting; they are very rich in history. If you want to delve further into the history of vacuum cleaners just do a search for, "history of vacuum cleaners" in your favorite search engine.

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