Daniel Hess - Inventor of Carpet Sweeper

As the Industrial Revolution was in the full swing, some products were more readily available to people than before. One of those products was carpet. Carpets were harder to clean than bare floors and people tried to devise easier methods for their cleaning.

The first one to use vacuum as a method for cleaning carpets was Daniel Hess of West Union, Iowa. In July 1860, he received a patent number 29,077, for an invention he called “carpet sweeper”. It had roller brushes and bellows that generated vacuum. When the bellows expanded they sucked the air and the dust in. When they contracted, they blew the air with dust into two cylinders with water that acted as filters and whose role was to, according to Hess’ words, “destroying (dirt) substantially".

This helped to contain the dirt in one place instead of raising it in clouds as other methods of cleaning did. When the cylinders were full they could be emptied, cleaned, filled with water again and returned to the machine. But Hess never successfully marketed his invention. The machine was very hard to use because bellows had to be continuously pumped for a cleaner to work. But it was a start in a good direction. The first successful vacuum cleaners used vacuum also as we use it today for the same use.