Manual vacuum cleaner

The manual vacuum cleaner was a type of non-electric vacuum cleaner, using suction to remove dirt from carpets, being powered by human muscle, similar in use to a manual lawn mower. Its invention is dated to the second half of the 19th century, when patents were granted to inventors in the United States, Britain, France, and elsewhere.

These household appliances created suction by either a pumping action, bellows, a piston being pushed up and down a tube, or had a fan driven by the wheels. Most required the efforts of two people. The models operable by one person were less efficient, but none were truly labor-saving devices or delivered the cleaning efficiency they promised. Besides hand-operated models, foot-operated models were also available, and according to a Swiss source there was even one where the operator sat in a rocking chair, rocking back and forth to produce the energy needed to create suction.

The Baby Daisy was a manual vacuum cleaner designed in France around 1890 but built in Britain. It required two people to operate it. The first person had to stand on the base of the bellows, moving it back and forth with the aid of a broomstick in the holder on the front.

"This movement was a key design feature as it has a double connected bellows, meaning that movement in either direction created a vacuum." The second person could use the attached hose then to clean the house. The dust was collected in a cotton bag within the machine. An example of this can be seen at the Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum

In 1898 Franz Burger of Fort Wayne, Ind. patented (#614,832 (Nov. 29, 1898) a "machine for cleaning fabrics", consisting of dual steam-powered "vacuum-chambers" (the first known use of the term "vacuum" for a cleaning device), a boxlike rectangular "extractor" with a perforated face and rollers to be pressed to the fabric, and a flexible connecting tube with a rigid tubular handle with a hand valve to turn off the suction when not needed; the whole unit could be mounted on a stationary base in a building or on a wheeled truck.

In 1905 Ira Hobart Spencer (1873-1928) founded the Spencer Turbine Cleaner Co. in Hartford, Connecticut to make the Turbine Vacuum Cleaner, a stationary installed vacuum cleaning system with lightweight hoses that operates on only 5 inches of water suction, with a trademarked "sugar scoop" housing profile.

In 1909 Oliver S. Kendall (died 1914) of Worcester, Mass. introduced the pump-type Pneu-Simplex Vacuum Cleaner, in a wooden housing.

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