Ives McGaffey patented the vacuum cleaner, a "sweeping machine" on June 8, 1869. calling it the Whirlwind. It was the first hand-pumped vacuum cleaner in the United States, a wood and canvas contraption Then Robert Taber, from "Floor Care Professional", icreated The Whirlwind; the oldest non-electric vacuum cleaner in the world based on McGaffey's design . Hubert Cecil Booth, a British engineer, received a British patent for a vacuum cleaner on August 30th 1901 and 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. As Hubert Booth, demonstrated his vacuuming device in a restaurant in 1901, two Americans introduced variations on the same theme. Corinne Dufour invented a device that sucked dust into a wet sponge. David E. Kenney’s huge machine was installed in the cellar and connected to a network of pipes leading to each room in the house. A corps of cleaners moved the machine from house to house. In 1907, James Murray Spangler, a janitor in a Canton, Ohio department store, deduced that the carpet sweeper he used was the source of his cough. He tinkered with an old fan motor and attached it to a soap box stapled to a broom handle. Using a pillow case as a dust collector on the contraption, Spangler invented a portable electric vacuum cleaner. He then improved his basic model the first to use both a cloth filter bag and cleaning attachments, and received a patent in 1908, and formed the Electric Suction Sweeper Company. One of the first buyers was a cousin, whose husband, William H. Hoover, later became the president of the Hoover Company, with Spangler as superintendent. Hoover’s improvements resembled a bagpipe attached to a cake box, but they worked. Sluggish sales were given a kick by Hoover’s 10 day, free home trial, and eventually there was a Hoover® vacuum cleaner in nearly every home. Some other Vaccum Firsts: In 1907, William Henry Hoover produced the first commercial bag-on-a-stick upright vacuum cleaner in Ohio, USA, although he was not responsible for its design. He bought the patent from his wife's cousin, James Murray Spangler. By 1919, Hoover cleaners were being manufactured in the UK, complete with the "beater bar" to establish the time honoured slogan "It beats as it sweeps as it cleans From the History Channel - The first "portable" electric vacuum was invented in 1905 by Chapman and Skinner in San Francisco. It weighed 92 pounds and used a fan 18 inches in diameter to produce the suction. Because of its size, it did not sell well. Hope this Helps, Tiff