VACUUM CLEANER

Evening Star, Issue 23128, 30 November 1938, Page 18

VACUUM CLEANER

INVENTED BY JANITOR Mr H. W. Hoover, vacuum cleaner king, disclaimed the credit for having been responsible for the vacuum cleaner just before he left London for New York recently. A middle-aged invalid, he said, was the man who abolished the housemaid’s brush and pan. Mr Hoover went on: “ He was a grand, lovable, eccentric genius named J. Murray Spangler. He had made and lost money by a variety of inventions. “ When he hit on the idea of cleaning carpets bv electric suction he was a janitor in an American department store. “ His health was poor. He. was earning £3 a week. “ He hated his dusty work, and m his spare time evolved a mechanical cleaner. It was driven by a motor taken from a musical slot machine the nickelodeon. . “ Nobody would look at it. Spangler and my father had been to school together. lie appealed to him. Father was a manufacturer of leather goods and one of the most prosperous men in the town .... “ Its tremendous possibilities were obvious to him. He saw that many improvements were necessary, and knew that Spangler was a man who quickly tired of his inventions. “ A contract was signed and a workshop built. Spangler was made to realise that in future he was to devote liimself entirely to the perfection of his vacuum cleaner. FORTUNE COMES. “ He had not the slightest idea about business or salesmanship. My lather attended to those matters. “ Those early vacuum cleaners each took 22 days to make. But they sold. Father gave up his leather business to create the huge sales organisation we know to-day.

“ Spangler wanted to turn to wireless and other things, but that contract, fortunately for him, had bound him to cleaning carpets. “ His fortune grew, until for the first time in his life he and his wife were able to plan a winter in Florida, where it was hoped his health would benefit. “ 1 made all the arrangements myself. Then on the eve of his departure ho went home that night and died from a heart attack. “ The excitement had proved too much for him.” Mr Hoover described how Spangler, a bearded, deeply religions man, arrived at his workshop every day wearing a starched white shirt with black tic and clothes.

“ His wife used to launder those shirts herself. He would wear no other,” said Mr Hoover. The inventor's trust in his partner was such that he left the arrangements for his widows’ future in his hands. “ I urged her in her own interests to appoint a lawyer. But she would not. She was content to receive her royalties without even bothering to examine our books, as she had every right to do. “ She is to-day well-to-do and living quietly with her daughter.” A vast British industry has grown out of an ailing janitor’s idea.