February 26, 2026 • 35 mins
Did you know over 90% of US households own a vacuum cleaner? These handy-dandy descendents of the carpet sweeper revolutionized the cleaning game... but where did they come from? As Ben, Noel and Max discover in today's episode, your humble vacuum is the result of centuries' worth of wild ideas -- and more than a few crazily ambitious inventors, as well.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man
the myth our super producer Maxwell Hoover Williams, but not
Hoover the.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Way you think, Max Williams.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
And for an episode about things that effectively suck. We
want to be clear and say that Max, you do
not suck. You are really cool.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
We're glad you're here. Yeah. I remember that bit from
Wayne's World where there's the guy that's got the vacuum
clean our haircut device called the suck cut, and he
goes it sucks as it cuts, and then Wayne goes
it certainly does suck. I do vaguely. I gotta I've
got to rewatch Wayne's World held franchise, it holds up.
(01:16):
It was back during.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
The that Halcyon age where if you had a good
enough character on Saturday Night Live, you automatically got a
movie deal. For the weirdest things Wayne's World.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I occupy some rarefied air, though, and it was a
real precursor to a lot of the third wall breaking
kind of absurdiest humor of the day of today. Really
Big Fan two is not quite as good, but it's
still great. But Man, Wayne's World Classic is a banger. Ben,
we're talking about vacuums today.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yes, it's Wayne's world and we are living in it.
I am Ben Bullen. You are Noel Brown.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
And this is a.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Spiritual descendant on that hit of that hit piece we
did earlier on uh not lawnmowers.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
But leaf blowers. Jeez, Ben, I barely even remember that
we did that because it must have just been such
a cathartic cleanse. And yet I still and I think
you feel the same way as do u. Max not
a fan of the humble leaf blower?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, and I don't think it's humble. I think it
insists upon itself. But you guys both have vacuum cleaners,
correct I do.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I am a fan. I am not a dice in man.
I am a shark. Man. I like a shark because
I think it's just as good as a dice in.
And I am a fan of a corded vacuum because
I don't know if they've made leaps and bounds in
vacuum battery life. But back in the day when this
dice battery powered dicens first came out. You could literally
get maybe like fifteen minutes out of it, and I
(02:53):
just that's not enough for me.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I've got a collection of vacuum cleaners.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I'm a fan of even one in the car. Nice
I like a quarded vacuum and canister vacuum. You get
into her bag list. What about you, Max?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I last year switched to the to the stick the
bat like it's not a battery pack, but it's like
you charged it directly into the thing, and it's fine.
It's not as power. I just find it's not as powerful.
I bet you if you get like one of like
the three hundred something dollars Dyceons, that'd be great.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
But sure the Ferrari of the vacuum world.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
I don't drive a Ferrari in my life. I'm not
gonna get a Ferrari of a vacuum.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
No. I think people are sleeping on Shark. I'm just
saying we're not sponsored by Shark. But shark is is
very comparable to the dcon. And then the one I
have is a stick and I find it does a
trick quite well. And I also to your point, Ben,
I do love a handheld vacuum also from Shark that
I used to clean up kitty litter and just you know,
round about behind things, crumbs and the like.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
It's a little scoopy doupe, little little light work vacuum. Folks,
what my compatriots said is true. We are not brought
to you by Big Suck, but we have we're.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Gonna keep it. That'd be a great name for like
a podcast, the Big Suck. Oh. I don't know what
it would be about, hopefully not only vacuums, because that's
not that does not that's not enough material to comprise
a whole podcast series, but it is certainly enough for
an episode, an episode researched by you, Sir ben Ah.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Thank you, Sir Noel. Look the how the household vacuum
cleaner is pretty common now. It's maybe not considered a
crucial household item the way that refrigerator would be or
the way that air conditioning would be, but it definitely
makes life easier to your earlier point, especially if we
(04:43):
have children or kids in the household.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
It is a convenience, to be sure, and you can
certainly get by with the old trusty classic broom and dustpan,
but not so much on a carpet. Bom brooman dustpan
is not going to help you out on a carpet
because all those little little bits of crud they get
stuck in the fibers of the of the carpet. And
a lot of modern vacuums even have like little rotating
(05:08):
drums of little little brushies that kind of help dislodge
some of that stuff. Again, shout out to shark, that's
a good weird just alive. They can have that, they
can have it.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
That's a good phrase. It eats dust alive. So this
is pressing it here, nol. Because the modern vacuum cleaner
comes to us via similar earlier inventions. Picture picture like
a steampunk eighteen hundred's version of a made for TV
ad where someone is sweeping carpet and saying there has
(05:42):
to be a better way.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Well, there is a better way, Ben, And it came
along in the form of the handy dandy, long handled
roly thingy called the carpet sweeper, which, to me, Ben is,
in a lot of ways the equivalent of the analog
lawnmower that sort of operates by locomotion alone. If I'm
not mistaken, The carpet sweeper is very similar. You got
(06:05):
to push. It does not have any electronics whatsoever. It
sort of sweeps as you push based on the force
of it, you know, moving forward. Yeah, folks, we.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Can all agree that using an old fashioned broom on
any kind of carpet is for the birds. It's inefficient,
it takes forever, and after a certain point, your broom
action will just be spreading stuff around instead of making
it easier to clean. And this is where we enter
onto the stage. One of our first inventors a guy
(06:40):
named Melville R. Bistle of Grand Rapids, Michigan. There's something
about Bistle that makes me think of nominative determinism for sure.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Don't know what the what it. Yeah, it's just got
it's kind a certain vibe. And I want to bristles.
It's a slant rhyme with bristle. That could well be
that you nailed it, Ben. And I want to say,
while the Bistle vacuum is certainly not, you know, the
go to kind of flagship vacuum that you see today,
I want to say they are still around and like
(07:10):
it's sort of like almost like a like a throwback
kind of thing. It's like what you see in theaters. Oh, geez, Louise,
Now I recognize the logo. Of course it still exists.
It's got the little triangle, a little red triangle logo.
And they make stick vacs along with the rest of
them pet hair vacs. They are very much a growing concern.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
They're still in the game. Melville Bissle patented his design
way back in eighteen seventy six. Now he was not
the first guy in the carpet sweeping phenomenon. That is
probably a guy named Daniel Hess out of West Union, Iowa.
But Bissile improved the earlier concepts. These were all mechanical, right,
(07:49):
because electricity wasn't really a thing for most people. They
had a series of belts and gears or rulers instead
of electric power. You can see him around a lot today.
It's funny that you were in my head too, man,
on the difference between a push lawnmower and a gas
powered one, because it all needs manual human muscle to operate.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, man, you mentioned steampunk. I don't think we said
it out loud in the dock here, but I can't
imagine what a manual vac must have been like. It
really does strike me as a bit of a bellows
driven steampunk concern. Right, oh yeah, yeah, we've got a
picture here in the research you could create the vacuum
(08:34):
action through as you said, crows or fans. It looks
like a musical instrument. This is very far from perfect.
A ton of people tried desperately, ardently to improve the design,
people from the US, from Britain, from France. This is
where the picture we're looking at here is something called
(08:55):
the Baby Daisy love it. I said, it looks like
a musical instrument because with the bellows and everything, it's
got kind of accordion vibes or the harmonium, which is
another bellows based instrument popular in Indian raga music for
creating drones. And also the film composer who did all
the Paul Thomas Anderson stuff, whose name is totally escaping
(09:17):
me right now, uses that instrument a lot, and it
actually featured in the plot of A Punch Drunk Love,
the pt Andersen movie. But yeah, it's a it's a
wooden box and you blink and you'd miss it. Ben,
But there is a very grimy looking stick coming up
out of it. And I am grimey of course, as
we're looking at a vintage example and then it appears,
(09:38):
is that a crank on the side or is that
part of Now that's that's part of another piece of
equipment and the thing. So how how would it actually operate? Oh,
it's positively something from the world of Doctor Seuss. Yeah,
you need two people to operate it. So yeah, one
person stands at the base of those bellows we mentioned earlier,
moving the bellows back and forth. The the other guys
(10:00):
what I'd like to call the hoseman. The hoseman is
you see.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
The manual vacuum power from the hose to suck up
stuff that goes into a cotton bag inside the device.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Oh who gets to be the bagman? That's my question.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
That's crazy because they did have to empty this out
after pretty much every use and then clean it and
then let it try out and then replace it.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
So I imagine you'd take turns alternating between who's the
hoseman and who's the bagman.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, it feels like between the bellowsman, the hoseman, and
the bagman. The bagman was kind of a short straw situation.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah, because that's the one that's got to deal with
all the ichy the ichy bits don't breathe that into deep.
Even to this day, Man, emptying a vacuum is is
no joke.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I know I've got I've got a vacuum right next
to me all frame as we're recording, and I realized
that I have to empty it after this. So maybe
that's motivation for our episode. Come on, though, baby Daisy,
Baby Daisy, it's a cool name.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
There were a lot of fat that's my main and
Mario Kart, oh yeah, your baby Jaysy. Baby Daisy is
absolutely a playable character in Mario Kart.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
We also know that a lot of these manual vacuum
cleaners had similar catchy names. They started popping up in
the eighteen sixties. You see the first motorized designs towards
the end or the turn of the twentieth century. So
as we get into the nineteen hundreds, this is where
(11:34):
we have to ask how on earth did vacuums become electric?
And to do that, we've got to introduce two more inventors.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Sorry, man, I briefly went down a Google rabbit hole
just looking for some really hoping for some fun names
for early vacuums. Yeah, they are are not nearly as
fun as I was hoping. I was hoping for something
more in line with like the whiz bang or the
you know, the the wang Dang doodle or something like that.
But we're looking more along the lines of what you
(12:10):
might see with modern appliances like the whirlwind or you've
got here one called the Regina, the Regina pneumatic cleaner,
which was I guess another name for a vacuum I
like the Golden Rod vacuum cleaner as well. The two
inventors we were teasing their names are Hubert Cecil Booth
(12:31):
and David T. Kenny.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
So in nineteen oh one, Booth unveils his creation that
turns heads, It raises eyebrows. It is a huge, gas
powered vacuum cleaner. It's not anything you would put in
your home unless you are a Saudi billionaire.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
It is horse drawn Jesus. Yeah. It parades through the through.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
The streets like Livesdale's to pull that, yeah, like a
steampunk carnival show. And it sucks up dirt from homes
and businesses or the you know, the the front sidewalks
of those places via these long hoses. Its street name
is and we kid the not folks, the Puff and Billy.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Not to be confused with Trip and Billy by the
Dave Matthews band, which is a stone cold banger, and
clearly about this vacuum absolutely been no question about it.
This was I'm a little confused up and so they
paraded through the streets. It was more of like a
I don't know, like a just like a street sweep,
a street sweeper. But then how do they get into
people's houses with those horses? They didn't. This was for
(13:38):
municipal vacuuming basically, so instead of just sweeping stuff around
in these dirty streets, it would suck up the detritus
and the debris and probably a lot of horse poop
and uh yeah, which they contributed to the to the
to the equation right.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
People were uh, this was divisive. People were not, you know,
quite yet to the atomic age. Some members of the
public absolutely hated this thing because of the noise or
the fact that it scared the shit out of horses.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Thank you for the beat, Max, Yeah, I mean even
the horses pulling it probably weren't loving it none too much.
And Booth, you know, had his fair share of court
cases jamming up his business until he finally convinced a
judge and a jury that his machine was the only
vacuum cleaner at the time that actually worked. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, pretty good, because now he's becoming like a Colonel
Kurtz of vacuum cleaners.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
He's saying, you might not agree with my means, but
my ends create results. Now, Ben, I'd got to wonder,
we've talked about the Great Stink of London and how
nasty things used to be in the olden days. How
you know which Sometimes you look at a picture of
those of that era and you can almost you can
smell it. The pictures you can smell. So I've got
(15:00):
to wonder if the argument being made for this had
historical precedent in terms of, like we need this for sanitation.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I think that's a really great point, because the Great
Stink of London was eighteen fifty eight. London is still
a very dirty place foot yeah, by nineteen oh one,
So yeah, that makes sense. That was probably part of
the court case public health. He said, it's worth the noise.
You know, again, I'm speculating here a little bit, but
(15:28):
with all of that soot in a time where it
was absolutely cold powered everything it would be. You could
definitely make the argument that it would be good for
the greater good and worth perhaps the startled horses and
the you know, interrupted naps. Yeah, they were cleaning everywhere.
The puffing Billy after the court cases got deployed everywhere
(15:50):
from Buckingham Palace to the Royal Mint and Crystal Palace.
In they did provide some sanitation benefits. In the Crystal Palace,
the puffing Billy removed twenty six tons of dust from
the girders during a First World War outbreak of spotted fever.
(16:11):
So this is helping people. Sorry horses, Ben, I think
the puff and Billy is actually truly is kind of
a steampunk reference. Oftentimes, locomotives were called puffer billies. There's
a song I'm talking about seeing the little puffer billies
all in a row, something about the engine driver puff, puff,
two toot and off we go. Guarantee that this was
(16:34):
referencing something that people were familiar with. Oh yeah, which
is what you always want to do with creating a
new product, right, Yeah, that's a great point. On the
other side of the property line. Okay, let's say we're
very wealthy, and we have our estate. We don't have
a large enough area for a puffing billy which is
(16:55):
still horse drawn to work. That's where Kenny comes in.
He creates a vacuum cleaner powered by an electric motor.
And this means you can, if you're very wealthy, you
can take this thing and you can use it at
your house. It is stationary, it weighs four thousand pounds,
it is steam powered. It's got pipes and hoses reaching
(17:18):
to all parts of the building, so it's a lot
more like a vacuum cleaner version of central air condition.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
I want to say Ben that in some older buildings,
in places like New York City, you can actually still
see receptacles on the wall left over from these types
of systems. Fascinating.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah, okay, that makes sense because it would be a
flex for you as a landowner to have one of
these bad boys. Since a lot of folks still didn't
have electricity, the vast majority of household chores were the same, old,
back breaking drudgery. This is a true story. It reminded
me of you guys. Back in the nineteen hundreds, these
(18:01):
gadgets were considered so impressive that people would throw what
they called vacuum cleaner parties. He's yeah, like pineapples. The
social ie, the socialites of the day would say.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Fellow one percentas, please come witness my vacuumry. It's like
a paintent party, marbouch, that's so funny, or like a
tupperware party. Okay, yeah, So it was a bit of
a flex almost like a salon. Oh just so.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And now again, so we have a big horse drawn
thing that is helping people avoid disease. We have a
massive internal infrastructure really for a fancy pants house. The
first hortible electric vacuum cleaner comes around in nineteen oh seven,
and this is courtesy of a very interesting guy named
(18:55):
James Murray Spangler.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yep, James Murray Spangler was a janitor at a department
store in Canton, Ohio. James got us a bit closer
to what we think of today when we think of
a modern vacuum cleaner that you might have around the
house as a custodian, which I think is the preferred
(19:19):
term the janitor, perhaps, right, and a guy with asthma.
Again to the point of the whole cold dust and
particulate matter of it all, and how this is an
issue that isn't going to be dealt with nearly as
well with a traditional you know, broom and dustpan. He
(19:40):
was super interested in cleaning technology. Oh, there are reasons,
and he was a bit of a tinkerer. M hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
The concept of a portable cleaning device was revolutionary because
it made cleaning more accessible, It made it easier, it
made it practical. It also made it more affordable. His
design still has this cloth, filter bag and cleaning attachments.
His design is also purchased by a guide named William
(20:12):
Hoover in nineteen oh eight, which leads to something called
the Hoover Company.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
And the rest is vacuum cleaner history. Hoover, of course,
basically becoming a verb for vacuuming things up today like
I say, I'm a hoover that up, you know, one
hundred percent? Yeah, it's an epononymous trademark. I always forget
that word, Ben, Thank you for always being so kind
as to remind me. By the nineteen twenties and thirties,
vacuum cleaners were starting to become something you might see
(20:40):
in a household rather than just in industrial situations. Hoover,
of course, on the front lines of this, recognizing the
potential of this booming market. This is, of course, the
time the age of the atom, you know, are starting
to get into like the you know, Sears catalog of
it all, the you know, the American Dream and all
(21:00):
of that, when things were kind of starting to take
on this patina of like futuristic and that what's more
futuristic than a cleaning robot? Exactly. Yes, Hoover did something
really clever. They said, we look, we can make a
little bit of money or a significant amount of money
(21:20):
pedling to the upper crust, or to be honest, to
the household cleaning staff of the upper crust. But our
real money is in economy of scale. If we can
make individual vacuums affordable to the average person, then we
can sell millions of those. And this is where we see.
(21:41):
I want to give a shout out to one of
my favorite websites for this. They're a little biased, Edison
Vacuums dot com. They're a Tennessee based company. By the
nineteen forties, as Edison tells us, we see the improvement
of the upright anister vacuum. Now it's more than just
(22:03):
a status symbol, more than just a cleaning tool. It
represents the future. It's Jetson's level at this point. Yeah,
and Ben, I dropped, and that's the one you meant
you referenced to. Edison Vacuums dot Com has some incredible
images of some designs of these canister vacuums. I think
one of my favorite ones, Ben, you'll see couple down.
(22:26):
It looks like a like it looks like it's like
an R two D two situation. It's like a globe.
It looks like a planet. It's got like ring around
the ring around the edge like Saturn. And it's light
blue and has these very mid century modern kind of
wheel design with a really cool kind of telescoping hose
that comes off of it and wraps around with an
(22:46):
attachment at the end. This is all a result of
post war technological advancement that led to more compact designs
in both the upright and these canister models. And I
guess today, but when we think of the canister models,
we think more of like shop vacs, you know, the
ones that roll around or dry wet vacs. But I
(23:08):
think typically you know that's not true. I have I
have seen some cleaning companies that use backpack mounted uh
vacuums that would be considered a canister version, but typically
I think the ones we see or we have as
individual households would be more of that upright back. And
there's a lot of propaganda to it. You can see.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
You can see clearly staged pictures of white American families
where there's one in the Edison Vacuum site that shows
a lady sitting down and watching in amusement as her
husband is using a canister vacuum, and the idea is now,
cleaning is so easy that even your dumb hubby can
(23:53):
do it.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
And he just looks like a real, real, real special boy.
He's like he's vacs like a missionary. Yeah, there's a
couple images when you're talking about it's clearly staged for
an advertisement, and this one probably is too, But there's
one of a dude on his own vacuuming up the
tray underneath a bird cage and with just the dopiest
grin on his face like he's a yeah, he's having
(24:16):
a ball, and the bird is in the background looking
at this as probably as frightened as the horses were
of the puffing a bility. Oh, more so, man, can
you imagine what that thing would do to a tiny
little parakeet.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And we see that these improvements continue over the massive
economic boom the dawn of the atomic age, which mentioned
earlier there. In post World War two America, we begin
to see the movement toward disposable culture. Vacuum cleaner bags
become disposable. They're not great for the environment, but they're
(24:57):
more convenient and arguably more hygienic for your household because
now you don't have to, like, let's say you suck
up something nasty or grody that could maybe be a
health hazard, and then you have to take your cotton
bag out and you have to wash it in your sink.
That could be a vector for plague or infection. Now
(25:18):
you just throw it away. It's the trashman's problem.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
You know. It's interesting, Ben, I actually also own a
baged whatever you call it, a vacuum that uses a bag,
a dispossible bag by a company that you may remember.
I think Rush Limbaugh chilled for this company back in
the day. Ork Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so kind
of popular, But I think they're more popular with older
(25:42):
folks who remember the good old glory days of vacuum
cleaners because vis belonged to my mother. Uh and I
inherited it, you know, from my mother when she when
she passed. So I have this rac but you got
to order the bags. You need the bags. It will
not operate with that. And I am a bagless man.
As we're going to get into. I think that's where
you were heading, Ben, that there is a bagless revolution
(26:05):
on the horizon.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Oh yes, sir, and Oric did something very clever by
making their bags proprietary. It's terrible for the consumer story
for the company.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
And the bagless vacuums those are the kind with uh,
this is embarrassing to check this out there, Yeah, show
these are the kinds that have that cup. This thing
is called the dirt cup. And you pull it out
and you can see how it's got a little trap door.
It's got a little trap door. As you're saying, you
can also have the advantage of seeing how much junk
(26:44):
is accreting in there and knowing when you.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Need to empty it. Well that's the thing too, Ben.
Both you and I are pet owners and pet dander
and the like. If you're not careful, it will significantly
hamper the effectiveness of your vacuum. It can get stuck
in the hose, it can build up in the filter,
So you really do have to kind of keep an
eye on that lest your vacuum lose it suck. I
(27:11):
think it's cool that you kept the Oric though, man.
I have it down here in my studio. I haven't
used it once, but I can't get rid of it.
My mom loved that thing. You got to get the
bags too, right, I got it bags, it's the problem.
Got no bags. He's got no bags. He's the bagman though.
I'm looking on Amazon right now. Actually, sixteen pack vacuum
bags for ORK type CC compatible with all ORC xcel
(27:34):
up right vacuum cleaners. Twenty dollars and ninety nine cents
for sixteen bags. Sixteen that's not awful. Guy's got full
stars too on the reviews. Yeah, they've got a very
loyal customer bag. I think that's right. Then. My mom
was in that number.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Did I tell you guys that not too far away
This is gonna sound crazy, you don't have to believe me,
But not too far away from the waffle House Museum
over an Avondale, where we visited researching our waffle House episode.
For a long long time there was a vacuum cleaner store,
(28:12):
and ever since Breaking Bad debuted, I was convinced.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
It was a grift. Yeah, well you gotta think too.
I mean, there used to be just stand alone vacuum
cleaner repair operations because you needed them. People. These things
would break and you needed to take it to an expert.
But now it seems like everything's covered under warranty. I mean,
how often do you bring It's annoying, honestly, because it
(28:39):
is the whole right to repair issue that we often
talk about on stuff. They don't want you to know
the idea that so many proprietary pieces of equipment that
consumers purchase, they're designed in such a way that it's
very difficult for you to repair or to have them repair.
They want you to send them back to the company.
(29:00):
Yeah planned opso lescens as well. They want you to
buy the new one.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
But of course, who are we to disparage the good
folks at places like Hoover, Aurek or of course the
Ferrari vacuums, Dyson and what was it? What was that
other one sharp sharp the Sharknado. That's not I think
it's the best opportunity though, But yeah, shark, So, for
better or worse. Now, ninety eight percent of US homes
(29:29):
have a vacuum cleaner, which is a crazy business success story,
considering that only thirty percent of homes had a vacuum
cleaner of any sort in the nineteen thirties through the forties.
It's because they're cheaper now, it's because there are more
people in the market. One of the weirdest facts recently
(29:50):
that we learned while we were putting this together is that,
out of all of the United States, the tiny I
called them the tiny Nation, the tiny state of Delaware
vacuums the most often.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Oh, call back to Wayne's world. Hey we're in Delaware, Aware,
nothing to do except vacuum and launder money apparently as well.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, probably, you know what, It's all starting to make
sense now that you say that. Of course, the people
who run money laundry are going to be great a vacuum.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Delaware residents vacuum the most because they're cleaning that money.
If anyone doesn't get their reference, there is a whole
thing we've talked about on stuff they don't want you
to know about how you'll often see businesses incorporated in
Delaware because they have I couldn't tell you exactly the
nature of them, but there are some interesting tax laws
or just financial laws that, for whatever reason are more
(30:52):
let's just say, are a little I don't know, kinder
and gentler. Ben, do you remember.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Corporate corporate friendly? There you go, they courage investment, and
they're willing to have an open conversation with you about
your liability or taxes.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
And they'll sell you a vacuum while they're at it. Hey,
we should talk about this briefly. Ben. Remember the days
of like, you know, death of a salesman and all
that stuff, The bygone era of door to door salesman.
I think one of those, very much that we see
parodied off in or shown in cartoons or sitcoms was
the person that would come to your door with a
(31:29):
vacuum and the would like, dump a bag of dirt
on your carbon and then you're like, what are you doing,
you mad man? Wait a minute, wait a minute, and
then they would vacuum it up and you'd be mind
blown and you would, of course, you know, shell out
and get the get the latest vacuum.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Uh huh, Yeah, and given our stereotypes of the nineteen fifties,
when the vacuum cleaner door to door salesperson showed up,
the people at the house were already way gone on
Mother's Little helpers or uh, what were those things, Benny's whatever?
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Those painkillers were amphetamines. Oh geeze ben They call them
popping Benny's but I can't remember what Benny's is short for.
But yes, Benzo now benzo diazipens or dopey dopey drugs.
I'm sorry. I've been watching the first season of True
Detective again, very very good. Uh interesting timing to check
(32:25):
it out right now, y'all if you want to, uh,
you know, get a view into a different perspective on
some things that are going on in the news. But
he calls them dopey drugs. Uh, rust coal, but yeah.
Traveling vacuum salespeople would represent brands like Kirby, who we
didn't talk about, and they were, of course, they had
to be showmen. They'd go door to door and use
(32:47):
these in home demonstration tactics to sell these high end
vacuum cleaners, and of course you would also see a
certain amount of pyramid scheminess to Yeah, we have a
bit of a pyramid scheme here in our podcast, folks,
because we'd like to tease future episodes while we wrap
(33:10):
up the first one. Uh, the vacuum cleaner has become
an inescapable, if ridiculous invention, it is still very convenient
for a lot of people. We'd love to hear your
weird vacuum cleaner stories. We'd also love to tell you
that we're going to get super into national anthems in
(33:31):
our very next episode. Oh my gosh, Ben, would you
believe it that there are still vacuum salespeople door to
door vacuum salespeople. I'm seeing an article here from let's
see six news in Tennessee. Hey, how about that alcoa
Alcoa woman regrets purchase from traveling salesmen after long refund disputes.
(33:55):
In Tennessee, there's a three day cooling off period for
door to door salespeople. In other words, if you sign
a contract, you can cancel it within three days. That's
what Donald McLendon tried to do. However, recently, she's been
getting notices for non payment from her loan company, and
these Kirby vacuums apparently cost about five grand.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Well, that's how they make the money and that specific
business model. It's a strange world out there, folks, but
we're glad we are on it with you together. Thank you,
as always so much to our super producer Max Hoover Williams.
Thank you to Alex Williams who composed this slap and bop,
(34:34):
and you know, honestly thanks to the people who invented
the vacuum.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Holy smokes, nol. I'm looking at it. The vacuum. I
just showed you that I have. It is also a shark.
I just never checked you. You're a shark man. Hey, yes, Oh,
my brother boocome to the club. You didn't even know
you were in it. Hughes, Thanks Chris Frosciotis and he's
Jeff cot here and Spira and of course Ben, thanks
to you for doing the research on this. Absolutely m
(35:00):
a of a of an episode on vacuums. Didn't suck
it up. We'll see your next eppooks. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man
the myth our super producer Maxwell Hoover Williams, but not
Hoover the.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Way you think, Max Williams.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
And for an episode about things that effectively suck. We
want to be clear and say that Max, you do
not suck. You are really cool.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
We're glad you're here. Yeah. I remember that bit from
Wayne's World where there's the guy that's got the vacuum
clean our haircut device called the suck cut, and he
goes it sucks as it cuts, and then Wayne goes
it certainly does suck. I do vaguely. I gotta I've
got to rewatch Wayne's World held franchise, it holds up.
(01:16):
It was back during.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
The that Halcyon age where if you had a good
enough character on Saturday Night Live, you automatically got a
movie deal. For the weirdest things Wayne's World.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I occupy some rarefied air, though, and it was a
real precursor to a lot of the third wall breaking
kind of absurdiest humor of the day of today. Really
Big Fan two is not quite as good, but it's
still great. But Man, Wayne's World Classic is a banger. Ben,
we're talking about vacuums today.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yes, it's Wayne's world and we are living in it.
I am Ben Bullen. You are Noel Brown.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
And this is a.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Spiritual descendant on that hit of that hit piece we
did earlier on uh not lawnmowers.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
But leaf blowers. Jeez, Ben, I barely even remember that
we did that because it must have just been such
a cathartic cleanse. And yet I still and I think
you feel the same way as do u. Max not
a fan of the humble leaf blower?
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, and I don't think it's humble. I think it
insists upon itself. But you guys both have vacuum cleaners,
correct I do.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I am a fan. I am not a dice in man.
I am a shark. Man. I like a shark because
I think it's just as good as a dice in.
And I am a fan of a corded vacuum because
I don't know if they've made leaps and bounds in
vacuum battery life. But back in the day when this
dice battery powered dicens first came out. You could literally
get maybe like fifteen minutes out of it, and I
(02:53):
just that's not enough for me.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I've got a collection of vacuum cleaners.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I'm a fan of even one in the car. Nice
I like a quarded vacuum and canister vacuum. You get
into her bag list. What about you, Max?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I last year switched to the to the stick the
bat like it's not a battery pack, but it's like
you charged it directly into the thing, and it's fine.
It's not as power. I just find it's not as powerful.
I bet you if you get like one of like
the three hundred something dollars Dyceons, that'd be great.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
But sure the Ferrari of the vacuum world.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
I don't drive a Ferrari in my life. I'm not
gonna get a Ferrari of a vacuum.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
No. I think people are sleeping on Shark. I'm just
saying we're not sponsored by Shark. But shark is is
very comparable to the dcon. And then the one I
have is a stick and I find it does a
trick quite well. And I also to your point, Ben,
I do love a handheld vacuum also from Shark that
I used to clean up kitty litter and just you know,
round about behind things, crumbs and the like.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
It's a little scoopy doupe, little little light work vacuum. Folks,
what my compatriots said is true. We are not brought
to you by Big Suck, but we have we're.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Gonna keep it. That'd be a great name for like
a podcast, the Big Suck. Oh. I don't know what
it would be about, hopefully not only vacuums, because that's
not that does not that's not enough material to comprise
a whole podcast series, but it is certainly enough for
an episode, an episode researched by you, Sir ben Ah.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Thank you, Sir Noel. Look the how the household vacuum
cleaner is pretty common now. It's maybe not considered a
crucial household item the way that refrigerator would be or
the way that air conditioning would be, but it definitely
makes life easier to your earlier point, especially if we
(04:43):
have children or kids in the household.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
It is a convenience, to be sure, and you can
certainly get by with the old trusty classic broom and dustpan,
but not so much on a carpet. Bom brooman dustpan
is not going to help you out on a carpet
because all those little little bits of crud they get
stuck in the fibers of the of the carpet. And
a lot of modern vacuums even have like little rotating
(05:08):
drums of little little brushies that kind of help dislodge
some of that stuff. Again, shout out to shark, that's
a good weird just alive. They can have that, they
can have it.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
That's a good phrase. It eats dust alive. So this
is pressing it here, nol. Because the modern vacuum cleaner
comes to us via similar earlier inventions. Picture picture like
a steampunk eighteen hundred's version of a made for TV
ad where someone is sweeping carpet and saying there has
(05:42):
to be a better way.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Well, there is a better way, Ben, And it came
along in the form of the handy dandy, long handled
roly thingy called the carpet sweeper, which, to me, Ben is,
in a lot of ways the equivalent of the analog
lawnmower that sort of operates by locomotion alone. If I'm
not mistaken, The carpet sweeper is very similar. You got
(06:05):
to push. It does not have any electronics whatsoever. It
sort of sweeps as you push based on the force
of it, you know, moving forward. Yeah, folks, we.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Can all agree that using an old fashioned broom on
any kind of carpet is for the birds. It's inefficient,
it takes forever, and after a certain point, your broom
action will just be spreading stuff around instead of making
it easier to clean. And this is where we enter
onto the stage. One of our first inventors a guy
(06:40):
named Melville R. Bistle of Grand Rapids, Michigan. There's something
about Bistle that makes me think of nominative determinism for sure.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Don't know what the what it. Yeah, it's just got
it's kind a certain vibe. And I want to bristles.
It's a slant rhyme with bristle. That could well be
that you nailed it, Ben. And I want to say,
while the Bistle vacuum is certainly not, you know, the
go to kind of flagship vacuum that you see today,
I want to say they are still around and like
(07:10):
it's sort of like almost like a like a throwback
kind of thing. It's like what you see in theaters. Oh, geez, Louise,
Now I recognize the logo. Of course it still exists.
It's got the little triangle, a little red triangle logo.
And they make stick vacs along with the rest of
them pet hair vacs. They are very much a growing concern.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
They're still in the game. Melville Bissle patented his design
way back in eighteen seventy six. Now he was not
the first guy in the carpet sweeping phenomenon. That is
probably a guy named Daniel Hess out of West Union, Iowa.
But Bissile improved the earlier concepts. These were all mechanical, right,
(07:49):
because electricity wasn't really a thing for most people. They
had a series of belts and gears or rulers instead
of electric power. You can see him around a lot today.
It's funny that you were in my head too, man,
on the difference between a push lawnmower and a gas
powered one, because it all needs manual human muscle to operate.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, man, you mentioned steampunk. I don't think we said
it out loud in the dock here, but I can't
imagine what a manual vac must have been like. It
really does strike me as a bit of a bellows
driven steampunk concern. Right, oh yeah, yeah, we've got a
picture here in the research you could create the vacuum
(08:34):
action through as you said, crows or fans. It looks
like a musical instrument. This is very far from perfect.
A ton of people tried desperately, ardently to improve the design,
people from the US, from Britain, from France. This is
where the picture we're looking at here is something called
(08:55):
the Baby Daisy love it. I said, it looks like
a musical instrument because with the bellows and everything, it's
got kind of accordion vibes or the harmonium, which is
another bellows based instrument popular in Indian raga music for
creating drones. And also the film composer who did all
the Paul Thomas Anderson stuff, whose name is totally escaping
(09:17):
me right now, uses that instrument a lot, and it
actually featured in the plot of A Punch Drunk Love,
the pt Andersen movie. But yeah, it's a it's a
wooden box and you blink and you'd miss it. Ben,
But there is a very grimy looking stick coming up
out of it. And I am grimey of course, as
we're looking at a vintage example and then it appears,
(09:38):
is that a crank on the side or is that
part of Now that's that's part of another piece of
equipment and the thing. So how how would it actually operate? Oh,
it's positively something from the world of Doctor Seuss. Yeah,
you need two people to operate it. So yeah, one
person stands at the base of those bellows we mentioned earlier,
moving the bellows back and forth. The the other guys
(10:00):
what I'd like to call the hoseman. The hoseman is
you see.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
The manual vacuum power from the hose to suck up
stuff that goes into a cotton bag inside the device.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Oh who gets to be the bagman? That's my question.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
That's crazy because they did have to empty this out
after pretty much every use and then clean it and
then let it try out and then replace it.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
So I imagine you'd take turns alternating between who's the
hoseman and who's the bagman.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, it feels like between the bellowsman, the hoseman, and
the bagman. The bagman was kind of a short straw situation.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Yeah, because that's the one that's got to deal with
all the ichy the ichy bits don't breathe that into deep.
Even to this day, Man, emptying a vacuum is is
no joke.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I know I've got I've got a vacuum right next
to me all frame as we're recording, and I realized
that I have to empty it after this. So maybe
that's motivation for our episode. Come on, though, baby Daisy,
Baby Daisy, it's a cool name.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
There were a lot of fat that's my main and
Mario Kart, oh yeah, your baby Jaysy. Baby Daisy is
absolutely a playable character in Mario Kart.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
We also know that a lot of these manual vacuum
cleaners had similar catchy names. They started popping up in
the eighteen sixties. You see the first motorized designs towards
the end or the turn of the twentieth century. So
as we get into the nineteen hundreds, this is where
(11:34):
we have to ask how on earth did vacuums become electric?
And to do that, we've got to introduce two more inventors.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Sorry, man, I briefly went down a Google rabbit hole
just looking for some really hoping for some fun names
for early vacuums. Yeah, they are are not nearly as
fun as I was hoping. I was hoping for something
more in line with like the whiz bang or the
you know, the the wang Dang doodle or something like that.
But we're looking more along the lines of what you
(12:10):
might see with modern appliances like the whirlwind or you've
got here one called the Regina, the Regina pneumatic cleaner,
which was I guess another name for a vacuum I
like the Golden Rod vacuum cleaner as well. The two
inventors we were teasing their names are Hubert Cecil Booth
(12:31):
and David T. Kenny.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
So in nineteen oh one, Booth unveils his creation that
turns heads, It raises eyebrows. It is a huge, gas
powered vacuum cleaner. It's not anything you would put in
your home unless you are a Saudi billionaire.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
It is horse drawn Jesus. Yeah. It parades through the through.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
The streets like Livesdale's to pull that, yeah, like a
steampunk carnival show. And it sucks up dirt from homes
and businesses or the you know, the the front sidewalks
of those places via these long hoses. Its street name
is and we kid the not folks, the Puff and Billy.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Not to be confused with Trip and Billy by the
Dave Matthews band, which is a stone cold banger, and
clearly about this vacuum absolutely been no question about it.
This was I'm a little confused up and so they
paraded through the streets. It was more of like a
I don't know, like a just like a street sweep,
a street sweeper. But then how do they get into
people's houses with those horses? They didn't. This was for
(13:38):
municipal vacuuming basically, so instead of just sweeping stuff around
in these dirty streets, it would suck up the detritus
and the debris and probably a lot of horse poop
and uh yeah, which they contributed to the to the
to the equation right.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
People were uh, this was divisive. People were not, you know,
quite yet to the atomic age. Some members of the
public absolutely hated this thing because of the noise or
the fact that it scared the shit out of horses.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Thank you for the beat, Max, Yeah, I mean even
the horses pulling it probably weren't loving it none too much.
And Booth, you know, had his fair share of court
cases jamming up his business until he finally convinced a
judge and a jury that his machine was the only
vacuum cleaner at the time that actually worked. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, pretty good, because now he's becoming like a Colonel
Kurtz of vacuum cleaners.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
He's saying, you might not agree with my means, but
my ends create results. Now, Ben, I'd got to wonder,
we've talked about the Great Stink of London and how
nasty things used to be in the olden days. How
you know which Sometimes you look at a picture of
those of that era and you can almost you can
smell it. The pictures you can smell. So I've got
(15:00):
to wonder if the argument being made for this had
historical precedent in terms of, like we need this for sanitation.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I think that's a really great point, because the Great
Stink of London was eighteen fifty eight. London is still
a very dirty place foot yeah, by nineteen oh one,
So yeah, that makes sense. That was probably part of
the court case public health. He said, it's worth the noise.
You know, again, I'm speculating here a little bit, but
(15:28):
with all of that soot in a time where it
was absolutely cold powered everything it would be. You could
definitely make the argument that it would be good for
the greater good and worth perhaps the startled horses and
the you know, interrupted naps. Yeah, they were cleaning everywhere.
The puffing Billy after the court cases got deployed everywhere
(15:50):
from Buckingham Palace to the Royal Mint and Crystal Palace.
In they did provide some sanitation benefits. In the Crystal Palace,
the puffing Billy removed twenty six tons of dust from
the girders during a First World War outbreak of spotted fever.
(16:11):
So this is helping people. Sorry horses, Ben, I think
the puff and Billy is actually truly is kind of
a steampunk reference. Oftentimes, locomotives were called puffer billies. There's
a song I'm talking about seeing the little puffer billies
all in a row, something about the engine driver puff, puff,
two toot and off we go. Guarantee that this was
(16:34):
referencing something that people were familiar with. Oh yeah, which
is what you always want to do with creating a
new product, right, Yeah, that's a great point. On the
other side of the property line. Okay, let's say we're
very wealthy, and we have our estate. We don't have
a large enough area for a puffing billy which is
(16:55):
still horse drawn to work. That's where Kenny comes in.
He creates a vacuum cleaner powered by an electric motor.
And this means you can, if you're very wealthy, you
can take this thing and you can use it at
your house. It is stationary, it weighs four thousand pounds,
it is steam powered. It's got pipes and hoses reaching
(17:18):
to all parts of the building, so it's a lot
more like a vacuum cleaner version of central air condition.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
I want to say Ben that in some older buildings,
in places like New York City, you can actually still
see receptacles on the wall left over from these types
of systems. Fascinating.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah, okay, that makes sense because it would be a
flex for you as a landowner to have one of
these bad boys. Since a lot of folks still didn't
have electricity, the vast majority of household chores were the same, old,
back breaking drudgery. This is a true story. It reminded
me of you guys. Back in the nineteen hundreds, these
(18:01):
gadgets were considered so impressive that people would throw what
they called vacuum cleaner parties. He's yeah, like pineapples. The
social ie, the socialites of the day would say.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Fellow one percentas, please come witness my vacuumry. It's like
a paintent party, marbouch, that's so funny, or like a
tupperware party. Okay, yeah, So it was a bit of
a flex almost like a salon. Oh just so.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And now again, so we have a big horse drawn
thing that is helping people avoid disease. We have a
massive internal infrastructure really for a fancy pants house. The
first hortible electric vacuum cleaner comes around in nineteen oh seven,
and this is courtesy of a very interesting guy named
(18:55):
James Murray Spangler.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yep, James Murray Spangler was a janitor at a department
store in Canton, Ohio. James got us a bit closer
to what we think of today when we think of
a modern vacuum cleaner that you might have around the
house as a custodian, which I think is the preferred
(19:19):
term the janitor, perhaps, right, and a guy with asthma.
Again to the point of the whole cold dust and
particulate matter of it all, and how this is an
issue that isn't going to be dealt with nearly as
well with a traditional you know, broom and dustpan. He
(19:40):
was super interested in cleaning technology. Oh, there are reasons,
and he was a bit of a tinkerer. M hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
The concept of a portable cleaning device was revolutionary because
it made cleaning more accessible, It made it easier, it
made it practical. It also made it more affordable. His
design still has this cloth, filter bag and cleaning attachments.
His design is also purchased by a guide named William
(20:12):
Hoover in nineteen oh eight, which leads to something called
the Hoover Company.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
And the rest is vacuum cleaner history. Hoover, of course,
basically becoming a verb for vacuuming things up today like
I say, I'm a hoover that up, you know, one
hundred percent? Yeah, it's an epononymous trademark. I always forget
that word, Ben, Thank you for always being so kind
as to remind me. By the nineteen twenties and thirties,
vacuum cleaners were starting to become something you might see
(20:40):
in a household rather than just in industrial situations. Hoover,
of course, on the front lines of this, recognizing the
potential of this booming market. This is, of course, the
time the age of the atom, you know, are starting
to get into like the you know, Sears catalog of
it all, the you know, the American Dream and all
(21:00):
of that, when things were kind of starting to take
on this patina of like futuristic and that what's more
futuristic than a cleaning robot? Exactly. Yes, Hoover did something
really clever. They said, we look, we can make a
little bit of money or a significant amount of money
(21:20):
pedling to the upper crust, or to be honest, to
the household cleaning staff of the upper crust. But our
real money is in economy of scale. If we can
make individual vacuums affordable to the average person, then we
can sell millions of those. And this is where we see.
(21:41):
I want to give a shout out to one of
my favorite websites for this. They're a little biased, Edison
Vacuums dot com. They're a Tennessee based company. By the
nineteen forties, as Edison tells us, we see the improvement
of the upright anister vacuum. Now it's more than just
(22:03):
a status symbol, more than just a cleaning tool. It
represents the future. It's Jetson's level at this point. Yeah,
and Ben, I dropped, and that's the one you meant
you referenced to. Edison Vacuums dot Com has some incredible
images of some designs of these canister vacuums. I think
one of my favorite ones, Ben, you'll see couple down.
(22:26):
It looks like a like it looks like it's like
an R two D two situation. It's like a globe.
It looks like a planet. It's got like ring around
the ring around the edge like Saturn. And it's light
blue and has these very mid century modern kind of
wheel design with a really cool kind of telescoping hose
that comes off of it and wraps around with an
(22:46):
attachment at the end. This is all a result of
post war technological advancement that led to more compact designs
in both the upright and these canister models. And I
guess today, but when we think of the canister models,
we think more of like shop vacs, you know, the
ones that roll around or dry wet vacs. But I
(23:08):
think typically you know that's not true. I have I
have seen some cleaning companies that use backpack mounted uh
vacuums that would be considered a canister version, but typically
I think the ones we see or we have as
individual households would be more of that upright back. And
there's a lot of propaganda to it. You can see.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
You can see clearly staged pictures of white American families
where there's one in the Edison Vacuum site that shows
a lady sitting down and watching in amusement as her
husband is using a canister vacuum, and the idea is now,
cleaning is so easy that even your dumb hubby can
(23:53):
do it.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
And he just looks like a real, real, real special boy.
He's like he's vacs like a missionary. Yeah, there's a
couple images when you're talking about it's clearly staged for
an advertisement, and this one probably is too, But there's
one of a dude on his own vacuuming up the
tray underneath a bird cage and with just the dopiest
grin on his face like he's a yeah, he's having
(24:16):
a ball, and the bird is in the background looking
at this as probably as frightened as the horses were
of the puffing a bility. Oh, more so, man, can
you imagine what that thing would do to a tiny
little parakeet.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
And we see that these improvements continue over the massive
economic boom the dawn of the atomic age, which mentioned
earlier there. In post World War two America, we begin
to see the movement toward disposable culture. Vacuum cleaner bags
become disposable. They're not great for the environment, but they're
(24:57):
more convenient and arguably more hygienic for your household because
now you don't have to, like, let's say you suck
up something nasty or grody that could maybe be a
health hazard, and then you have to take your cotton
bag out and you have to wash it in your sink.
That could be a vector for plague or infection. Now
(25:18):
you just throw it away. It's the trashman's problem.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
You know. It's interesting, Ben, I actually also own a
baged whatever you call it, a vacuum that uses a bag,
a dispossible bag by a company that you may remember.
I think Rush Limbaugh chilled for this company back in
the day. Ork Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so kind
of popular, But I think they're more popular with older
(25:42):
folks who remember the good old glory days of vacuum
cleaners because vis belonged to my mother. Uh and I
inherited it, you know, from my mother when she when
she passed. So I have this rac but you got
to order the bags. You need the bags. It will
not operate with that. And I am a bagless man.
As we're going to get into. I think that's where
you were heading, Ben, that there is a bagless revolution
(26:05):
on the horizon.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Oh yes, sir, and Oric did something very clever by
making their bags proprietary. It's terrible for the consumer story
for the company.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
And the bagless vacuums those are the kind with uh,
this is embarrassing to check this out there, Yeah, show
these are the kinds that have that cup. This thing
is called the dirt cup. And you pull it out
and you can see how it's got a little trap door.
It's got a little trap door. As you're saying, you
can also have the advantage of seeing how much junk
(26:44):
is accreting in there and knowing when you.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Need to empty it. Well that's the thing too, Ben.
Both you and I are pet owners and pet dander
and the like. If you're not careful, it will significantly
hamper the effectiveness of your vacuum. It can get stuck
in the hose, it can build up in the filter,
So you really do have to kind of keep an
eye on that lest your vacuum lose it suck. I
(27:11):
think it's cool that you kept the Oric though, man.
I have it down here in my studio. I haven't
used it once, but I can't get rid of it.
My mom loved that thing. You got to get the
bags too, right, I got it bags, it's the problem.
Got no bags. He's got no bags. He's the bagman though.
I'm looking on Amazon right now. Actually, sixteen pack vacuum
bags for ORK type CC compatible with all ORC xcel
(27:34):
up right vacuum cleaners. Twenty dollars and ninety nine cents
for sixteen bags. Sixteen that's not awful. Guy's got full
stars too on the reviews. Yeah, they've got a very
loyal customer bag. I think that's right. Then. My mom
was in that number.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Did I tell you guys that not too far away
This is gonna sound crazy, you don't have to believe me,
But not too far away from the waffle House Museum
over an Avondale, where we visited researching our waffle House episode.
For a long long time there was a vacuum cleaner store,
(28:12):
and ever since Breaking Bad debuted, I was convinced.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
It was a grift. Yeah, well you gotta think too.
I mean, there used to be just stand alone vacuum
cleaner repair operations because you needed them. People. These things
would break and you needed to take it to an expert.
But now it seems like everything's covered under warranty. I mean,
how often do you bring It's annoying, honestly, because it
(28:39):
is the whole right to repair issue that we often
talk about on stuff. They don't want you to know
the idea that so many proprietary pieces of equipment that
consumers purchase, they're designed in such a way that it's
very difficult for you to repair or to have them repair.
They want you to send them back to the company.
(29:00):
Yeah planned opso lescens as well. They want you to
buy the new one.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
But of course, who are we to disparage the good
folks at places like Hoover, Aurek or of course the
Ferrari vacuums, Dyson and what was it? What was that
other one sharp sharp the Sharknado. That's not I think
it's the best opportunity though, But yeah, shark, So, for
better or worse. Now, ninety eight percent of US homes
(29:29):
have a vacuum cleaner, which is a crazy business success story,
considering that only thirty percent of homes had a vacuum
cleaner of any sort in the nineteen thirties through the forties.
It's because they're cheaper now, it's because there are more
people in the market. One of the weirdest facts recently
(29:50):
that we learned while we were putting this together is that,
out of all of the United States, the tiny I
called them the tiny Nation, the tiny state of Delaware
vacuums the most often.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Oh, call back to Wayne's world. Hey we're in Delaware, Aware,
nothing to do except vacuum and launder money apparently as well.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, probably, you know what, It's all starting to make
sense now that you say that. Of course, the people
who run money laundry are going to be great a vacuum.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Delaware residents vacuum the most because they're cleaning that money.
If anyone doesn't get their reference, there is a whole
thing we've talked about on stuff they don't want you
to know about how you'll often see businesses incorporated in
Delaware because they have I couldn't tell you exactly the
nature of them, but there are some interesting tax laws
or just financial laws that, for whatever reason are more
(30:52):
let's just say, are a little I don't know, kinder
and gentler. Ben, do you remember.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Corporate corporate friendly? There you go, they courage investment, and
they're willing to have an open conversation with you about
your liability or taxes.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
And they'll sell you a vacuum while they're at it. Hey,
we should talk about this briefly. Ben. Remember the days
of like, you know, death of a salesman and all
that stuff, The bygone era of door to door salesman.
I think one of those, very much that we see
parodied off in or shown in cartoons or sitcoms was
the person that would come to your door with a
(31:29):
vacuum and the would like, dump a bag of dirt
on your carbon and then you're like, what are you doing,
you mad man? Wait a minute, wait a minute, and
then they would vacuum it up and you'd be mind
blown and you would, of course, you know, shell out
and get the get the latest vacuum.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Uh huh, Yeah, and given our stereotypes of the nineteen fifties,
when the vacuum cleaner door to door salesperson showed up,
the people at the house were already way gone on
Mother's Little helpers or uh, what were those things, Benny's whatever?
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Those painkillers were amphetamines. Oh geeze ben They call them
popping Benny's but I can't remember what Benny's is short for.
But yes, Benzo now benzo diazipens or dopey dopey drugs.
I'm sorry. I've been watching the first season of True
Detective again, very very good. Uh interesting timing to check
(32:25):
it out right now, y'all if you want to, uh,
you know, get a view into a different perspective on
some things that are going on in the news. But
he calls them dopey drugs. Uh, rust coal, but yeah.
Traveling vacuum salespeople would represent brands like Kirby, who we
didn't talk about, and they were, of course, they had
to be showmen. They'd go door to door and use
(32:47):
these in home demonstration tactics to sell these high end
vacuum cleaners, and of course you would also see a
certain amount of pyramid scheminess to Yeah, we have a
bit of a pyramid scheme here in our podcast, folks,
because we'd like to tease future episodes while we wrap
(33:10):
up the first one. Uh, the vacuum cleaner has become
an inescapable, if ridiculous invention, it is still very convenient
for a lot of people. We'd love to hear your
weird vacuum cleaner stories. We'd also love to tell you
that we're going to get super into national anthems in
(33:31):
our very next episode. Oh my gosh, Ben, would you
believe it that there are still vacuum salespeople door to
door vacuum salespeople. I'm seeing an article here from let's
see six news in Tennessee. Hey, how about that alcoa
Alcoa woman regrets purchase from traveling salesmen after long refund disputes.
(33:55):
In Tennessee, there's a three day cooling off period for
door to door salespeople. In other words, if you sign
a contract, you can cancel it within three days. That's
what Donald McLendon tried to do. However, recently, she's been
getting notices for non payment from her loan company, and
these Kirby vacuums apparently cost about five grand.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Well, that's how they make the money and that specific
business model. It's a strange world out there, folks, but
we're glad we are on it with you together. Thank you,
as always so much to our super producer Max Hoover Williams.
Thank you to Alex Williams who composed this slap and bop,
(34:34):
and you know, honestly thanks to the people who invented
the vacuum.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Holy smokes, nol. I'm looking at it. The vacuum. I
just showed you that I have. It is also a shark.
I just never checked you. You're a shark man. Hey, yes, Oh,
my brother boocome to the club. You didn't even know
you were in it. Hughes, Thanks Chris Frosciotis and he's
Jeff cot here and Spira and of course Ben, thanks
to you for doing the research on this. Absolutely m
(35:00):
a of a of an episode on vacuums. Didn't suck
it up. We'll see your next eppooks. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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Noel Brown
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