Hubert, Cecil Booth, a British engineer, received a British patent for a vacuum cleaner on August 30, 1901. This unwieldy machine took the form of a large, horse-drawn, petrol-driven unit, which was parked outside the building to be cleaned with long hoses being fed through the windows.
James Murray Spangler, a janitor in an Ohio department store, realized that the carpet sweeper he used was creating his cough. He found an old fan motor, and attached it to a soapbox stapled to a broom handle. Using a pillowcase as a dust collector on the contraption, Spangler invented a portable electric vacuum cleaner in 1907. He then improved his basic model first to use both a cloth filter bag, and cleaning attachments. He received a patent for his invention in 1908, and formed the Electric Suction Sweeper Company. On of his first buyers was a cousin whose husband, William H. Hoover, later became the president of the Hoover company which made vacuum cleaners, with Spangler as superintendent. William Hoover began to make electric cleaners in 1908.
