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The Hoover Company
The Hoover Company is a home appliance company founded in Ohio, United States, in 1908. It also established a major base in the United Kingdom, where it dominated the electric vacuum cleaner industry during most of the 20th century, to the point where the Hoover brand name became synonymous with vacuum cleaners and vacuuming in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Hoover North America was once part of Maytag, but was sold by Maytag's new owners Whirlpool Corporation in 2007 to Hong Kong multinational manufacturing company Techtronic Industries for $107 million. Hoover International had already split from Hoover North America in 1993, and was acquired by Candy in 1995, which was acquired by Haier in 2019.
In addition to producing floorcare products, Hoover was also an iconic domestic appliance brand in Europe, particularly well known for its washing machines and tumble dryers in the UK and Ireland, and also had significant sales in many parts of Europe. Today, the Hoover Europe brand, as part of the portfolio of brands owned by Chinese multinational home appliances company Haier remains a major player in the European white goods and floor care sectors in a number of countries.
The first upright vacuum cleaner was invented in June 1908 in North Canton, Ohio, by department store janitor and occasional inventor James Murray Spangler. Spangler was an asthmatic, and suspecting the carpet sweeper he was using at work was the cause of his ailment, he created a basic suction-sweeper by mounting an electric fan motor on a carpet sweeper and then adding a soap box and a broom handle. After refining the design and obtaining a patent for the Electric Suction Sweeper he set about producing it himself, assisted by his son, who helped him assemble the machines, and his daughter, who assembled the dust bags. Production was slow, completing just two to three machines a week.
Spangler soon gave one of his Electric Suction Sweepers to his cousin Susan Troxel Hoover, who used it at home. Impressed with the machine, she told her husband and son about it. William Henry "Boss" Hoover and son Herbert William Hoover Sr. were leather goods manufacturers in North Canton, Ohio, which at the time was called New Berlin. Hoover bought the patent from Spangler later that same year, founding the Electric Suction Sweeper Company for an initial capital investment of $36,000 ($1,259,867 today), retaining Spangler as production supervisor with pay based on royalties in the new business. Spangler continued to contribute to the company, patenting numerous further Suction Sweeper designs until his death in 1915, when the company name was changed to the Hoover Suction Sweeper Company, with Spangler's family continuing to receive royalties from his original patent until 1925.
In the early 1930s, the company retained the services of Henry Dreyfuss, an up-and-coming industrial designer, to give the Hoover lineup a much needed update. Before Dreyfuss's involvement with the company, the majority of the machines manufactured consisted of a black motor and an aluminum base; this was the norm for more than twenty years. When Hoover introduced the 'Hedlite' in 1932, it was rather awkward and unattractive.
Dreyfuss made the machine more aesthetically pleasing and echoed the trends of streamlined design. In 1935, he was commissioned to completely redesign the Hoover cleaner. In 1936, for a fee of US$25,000, Dreyfuss sold Hoover the design which would become the Model 150 cleaner. For the first time since the introduction of the Hoover vacuum cleaner, the mechanical workings were completely concealed from sight by a Bakelite cover. This cover was a tear-drop styled shell, which seamlessly incorporated the headlight. Also, he totally revamped the base of the machine. Since the release of this design, all Hoover cleaners consisted of a fluid base and a hood to cover the electric motor. These designs suggested efficiency, cleanliness, and speed. His final design for the Hoover Company was the 1957 Convertible.
Faced with a total lack of interest by the public in his expensive and unfamiliar new gadget, Hoover placed an ad in The Saturday Evening Post offering customers ten days' free use of his vacuum cleaner to anyone who requested it. Using a network of local retailers to facilitate the offer, Hoover thus developed a national network of retailers for the vacuums. By the end of 1908, the company had sold 372 Model 0s. By 1912, sales had been made to Norway, France, Russia, Belgium, Holland and Scotland.
In 1919, Gerald Page-Wood – an art director of Erwin, Wasey & Company, Hoover's advertising agency – came up with a succinct slogan which summed up the Hoover's cleaning action: 'It Beats...as it Sweeps...as it Cleans'. At this time, it referred to the action of the revolving brushes, which vibrated the carpet and helped loosen the trodden-in grit. This offered an advantage over competitors' machines, which used suction alone to remove dirt, and therefore were not as efficient as the Hoover. Seven years later, the famous slogan would adapt to even more significance.
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The Hoover Company
The Hoover Company is a home appliance company founded in Ohio, United States, in 1908. It also established a major base in the United Kingdom, where it dominated the electric vacuum cleaner industry during most of the 20th century, to the point where the Hoover brand name became synonymous with vacuum cleaners and vacuuming in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Hoover North America was once part of Maytag, but was sold by Maytag's new owners Whirlpool Corporation in 2007 to Hong Kong multinational manufacturing company Techtronic Industries for $107 million. Hoover International had already split from Hoover North America in 1993, and was acquired by Candy in 1995, which was acquired by Haier in 2019.
In addition to producing floorcare products, Hoover was also an iconic domestic appliance brand in Europe, particularly well known for its washing machines and tumble dryers in the UK and Ireland, and also had significant sales in many parts of Europe. Today, the Hoover Europe brand, as part of the portfolio of brands owned by Chinese multinational home appliances company Haier remains a major player in the European white goods and floor care sectors in a number of countries.
The first upright vacuum cleaner was invented in June 1908 in North Canton, Ohio, by department store janitor and occasional inventor James Murray Spangler. Spangler was an asthmatic, and suspecting the carpet sweeper he was using at work was the cause of his ailment, he created a basic suction-sweeper by mounting an electric fan motor on a carpet sweeper and then adding a soap box and a broom handle. After refining the design and obtaining a patent for the Electric Suction Sweeper he set about producing it himself, assisted by his son, who helped him assemble the machines, and his daughter, who assembled the dust bags. Production was slow, completing just two to three machines a week.
Spangler soon gave one of his Electric Suction Sweepers to his cousin Susan Troxel Hoover, who used it at home. Impressed with the machine, she told her husband and son about it. William Henry "Boss" Hoover and son Herbert William Hoover Sr. were leather goods manufacturers in North Canton, Ohio, which at the time was called New Berlin. Hoover bought the patent from Spangler later that same year, founding the Electric Suction Sweeper Company for an initial capital investment of $36,000 ($1,259,867 today), retaining Spangler as production supervisor with pay based on royalties in the new business. Spangler continued to contribute to the company, patenting numerous further Suction Sweeper designs until his death in 1915, when the company name was changed to the Hoover Suction Sweeper Company, with Spangler's family continuing to receive royalties from his original patent until 1925.
In the early 1930s, the company retained the services of Henry Dreyfuss, an up-and-coming industrial designer, to give the Hoover lineup a much needed update. Before Dreyfuss's involvement with the company, the majority of the machines manufactured consisted of a black motor and an aluminum base; this was the norm for more than twenty years. When Hoover introduced the 'Hedlite' in 1932, it was rather awkward and unattractive.
Dreyfuss made the machine more aesthetically pleasing and echoed the trends of streamlined design. In 1935, he was commissioned to completely redesign the Hoover cleaner. In 1936, for a fee of US$25,000, Dreyfuss sold Hoover the design which would become the Model 150 cleaner. For the first time since the introduction of the Hoover vacuum cleaner, the mechanical workings were completely concealed from sight by a Bakelite cover. This cover was a tear-drop styled shell, which seamlessly incorporated the headlight. Also, he totally revamped the base of the machine. Since the release of this design, all Hoover cleaners consisted of a fluid base and a hood to cover the electric motor. These designs suggested efficiency, cleanliness, and speed. His final design for the Hoover Company was the 1957 Convertible.
Faced with a total lack of interest by the public in his expensive and unfamiliar new gadget, Hoover placed an ad in The Saturday Evening Post offering customers ten days' free use of his vacuum cleaner to anyone who requested it. Using a network of local retailers to facilitate the offer, Hoover thus developed a national network of retailers for the vacuums. By the end of 1908, the company had sold 372 Model 0s. By 1912, sales had been made to Norway, France, Russia, Belgium, Holland and Scotland.
In 1919, Gerald Page-Wood – an art director of Erwin, Wasey & Company, Hoover's advertising agency – came up with a succinct slogan which summed up the Hoover's cleaning action: 'It Beats...as it Sweeps...as it Cleans'. At this time, it referred to the action of the revolving brushes, which vibrated the carpet and helped loosen the trodden-in grit. This offered an advantage over competitors' machines, which used suction alone to remove dirt, and therefore were not as efficient as the Hoover. Seven years later, the famous slogan would adapt to even more significance.