Vacuum Cleaners are Ridiculous!

Summary

Ridiculous History – "Vacuum Cleaners are Ridiculous!"

Podcast: Ridiculous History
Hosts: Ben Bowlin, Noel Brown
Date: February 26, 2026
Super Producer: Maxwell “Hoover” Williams

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Episode Overview

This playful, engaging episode of Ridiculous History explores the bizarre and surprisingly complex history of the vacuum cleaner. Hosts Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown unpack how these now-ubiquitous cleaning appliances evolved from manual contraptions requiring two people to today's high-powered, sometimes even fashionable, household gadgets. Along the way, listeners are treated to stories of eccentric inventors, flashy marketing, and the relentless evolution from mechanical dust-busters to corded and bagless machines.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Host Vacuum Debate (04:33–06:08)

• Ben and Noel open by comparing their own vacuums: Noel is a fan of the Shark brand over Dyson due to price and performance, preferring corded and handheld models. Ben keeps a collection, including a car vacuum, and producer Max shares his experience with stick vacuums.
  • “We are not brought to you by Big Suck, but we have. We...we're gonna keep it.” (Ben, 05:55)

Early Attempts at Carpet Cleaning (07:25–13:04)

• Manual Predecessors: Before vacuums, cleaning carpets was laborious and inefficient—manual carpet sweepers emerged as the first innovation.
• Melville R. Bissell: Developed a superior mechanical carpet sweeper in 1876 (Grand Rapids, Michigan), leading to the still-surviving Bissell brand.
  • “It's a slant rhyme with bristle.” (Ben, 08:59)
• Other Early Machines: "The Baby Daisy" required two operators—one to pump bellows, another to wield the hose.
  • “The bagman was kind of a short straw situation.” (Ben, 12:34)

The First Motorized and Horse-Drawn Vacuums (18:45–23:49)

• Hubert Cecil Booth ("Puffing Billy")
  • 1910: Booth unveils a giant, gas-powered, horse-drawn vacuum for municipal cleaning—sucked dirt from streets via long hoses.
  • “Its street name is...the Puffin Billy.” (Ben, 19:34)
  • Despite frightful noise and horse complaints, it was used in places like Buckingham Palace and the Royal Mint, and was credited for public health improvements.
• David T. Kenney:
  • Developed in-home, stationary central vacuum systems (4,000 lbs, steam/electric powered, fixed pipes/wall outlets) for the ultrarich.
  • Hosts note some NYC buildings still have remains of these systems.

Going Portable: The Spangler-Hoover Revolution (24:55–27:34)

• James Murray Spangler:
  • Ohio janitor with asthma who invents the first practical portable electric vacuum (1907). William Hoover buys the patent and founds the Hoover Company, propelling the vacuum into mass adoption.
  • “The rest is vacuum cleaner history.” (Noel, 26:41)
  • The name "Hoover" becomes synonymous with vacuuming (“I’m gonna hoover that up”).
• Marketing & Social Flex:
  • Early home vacuum owners hosted “vacuum cleaner parties” to show off their modernity—a new household status symbol.
  • “The socialites of the day would say, oh, fellow 1 percenters, please come witness my vacuumary.” (Ben, 24:44)

Design Innovations and the Bagless Revolution (28:35–37:24)

• Postwar Innovations:
  • Shift towards upright and canister vacuums (stylish, colorful “Jetsons-level” designs).
  • Advertising begins depicting even husbands cleaning—“so easy even your dumb hubby can do it.”
• Disposable vs. Bagless:
  • Movement to disposable vacuum bags in the atomic age: more hygienic, but environmentally questionable.
  • In the late 20th century, bagless models (e.g., “dirt cup”) provide new benefits, especially visible for pet owners.
  • “Both you and I are pet owners...if you are not careful...your vacuum [can] lose its suck.” (Noel, 37:01–37:24)
• Brand and Repair Culture:
  • Ben reminisces about a local vacuum repair shop and the “planned obsolescence” frustrating modern consumers.
  • Oreck, a “boomer brand,” is discussed for its proprietary bag system.
  • Nostalgia for the era when vacuums were durable, serviceable products.

Fun Vacuum Facts and Delaware’s Unique Distinction (39:35–41:12)

• By the modern day, 98% of U.S. homes have a vacuum—up from just 30% in the 1930s-40s.
• “Out of all of the United States...the tiny state of Delaware vacuums the most often.” (Ben, 39:56)
  • The hosts riff on Delaware’s reputation for corporate friendliness and its status as the nation’s most frequent vacuumers.

The Rise and Fall of the Door-to-Door Vacuum Salesman (41:21–44:25)

• Classic American trope: The vacuum salesman dumping dirt on the floor, vacuuming it up to impress housewives.
• Brands like Kirby perfected this sales model; “pyramid schemes” sometimes involved.
• "The person that would come to your door with a vacuum and they would like dump a bag of dirt on your carpet. And then you're like, what are you doing, you madman?...Wait a minute, wait a minute. And then they would vacuum it up and you'd be mind blown and you would of course shell out and get the latest vacuum.” (Noel, 41:21)
• These “in-home demonstrations” are now largely extinct, though not completely—some high-end Kirby sales still happen door-to-door.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On absurdity:
  • “We are not brought to you by Big Suck, but we have. We...we're gonna keep it.” (Ben, 05:55)
• On early designs:
  • “Oh, it's positively something from the world of Dr. Seuss.” (Ben, 11:50)
• On evolution:
  • “The vacuum cleaner has become an inescapable, if ridiculous invention. It is still very convenient for a lot of people.” (Ben, 43:14)
• On Delaware:
  • “Nothing to do in Delaware except vacuum and launder money, apparently as well.” (Noel, 40:24)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Host Vacuum Preferences: 04:33–06:08
• The Bissell and Early Mechanical Sweepers: 07:25–09:33
• Manual Contraptions (The Baby Daisy, Bellows): 10:16–13:04
• Motorized/Horse-Drawn Innovations – Puffing Billy: 18:45–23:49
• Spangler & Hoover Invention: 24:55–27:34
• Postwar/Upright Transition & Bagless Revolution: 28:35–37:24
• Vacuum Repair, Brand Wars, and Planned Obsolescence: 38:03–39:29
• Delaware the Vacuum King: 39:35–41:12
• Door-to-Door Salesmen & Kirby Stories: 41:21–44:25

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Tone & Enjoyment

• The hosts’ banter is light, irreverent, and affectionate toward their subject, peppered with 90s pop culture references (“Wayne’s World”), running gags about vacuums “sucking,” and jovial self-deprecation.
• The episode brings to life just how odd, cumbersome, and class-conscious the development of the vacuum cleaner has been—and how its evolution reflects changing views of modernity, hygiene, and consumerism.

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Summary Takeaway

This deep dive into the ridiculous history of the vacuum cleaner highlights how a simple household tool can be a mirror of social, technological, and economic change. With stories ranging from two-person bellows-powered monsters to iconic brands and clever marketing ploys, Ben and Noel illustrate that “things that suck” can reveal a lot about us—and still bring a ton of laughs.

Transcript

[Ben Bullen]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartradio. Welcome back to 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 way you think, Max.

[Noel Brown]

Vroom, vroom, Williams.

[Ben Bullen]

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 and we're glad you're here.

[Noel Brown]

Y' all remember that bit from Wayne's World where there's the guy that's got the vacuum cleaner haircut device called the Suck Cut. And he goes, it sucks as it cuts. And then Wayne goes, it certainly does suck.

[Ben Bullen]

I do vaguely remember that I've got to rewatch Wayne's World franchise.

[Noel Brown]

It holds up.

[Ben Bullen]

It was back during 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.

[Noel Brown]

Wayne's World occupies some rarefied air, though. And it was a real precursor to a lot of the third wall breaking kind of absurdist hum of the day of today. Really Big Fan 2 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.

[Ben Bullen]

Yes, it's Wayne's World and we are living in it. I am Ben Bullen, you are Noel Brown. And this is a spiritual descendant on that hit of that hit piece we did earlier on not lawnmowers, but leaf blowers.

[Noel Brown]

Geez, Ben, I barely even remembered 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 you, Max. Not a fan of the humble leaf blower.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, and I don't think it's humble. I think it insists upon itself.

[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bullen]

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[Ben Bullen]

But you guys both have vacuum cleaners, correct?

[Noel Brown]

I do. I am a fan. I am not a Dyson man. I am a shark man. I like a shark because I think it's just as good as a Dyson. 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 the battery powered Dysons first came out, you could literally get maybe like 15 minutes out of it. And I just. That's not enough for me.

[Ben Bullen]

I have a. I've got a collection of vacuum cleaners. I'm a fan. I'm a fan of keeping one in the car.

[Noel Brown]

Nice.

[Ben Bullen]

I like a corded vacuum. A canister vacuum get into or bagless.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. What.

[Ben Bullen]

What about you, Max? I last year switched to the.

[Noel Brown]

To the stick the bat. Like it's not a battery pack but it's like you charging 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 300 something dollar Dysons that'd be great.

[Ben Bullen]

But sure, the fer of the vacuum world.

[Noel Brown]

I don't drive a Ferrari in my life. I'm not gonna get a Ferrari of a vacuum, yo. I think people are sleeping on Shark. I'm just saying we're not sponsored by Shark, but Shark is very comparable to the Dyson and the one I have is a stick and I find it does the trick quite well. And I also to your point, Ben, I do love a handheld vacuum also from Shark that I use to clean up kitty litter and just, you know, roundabout behind things crumbs and the like

[Ben Bullen]

little Scooby Doop, 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, we're gonna keep it.

[Noel Brown]

That'd be a great name for like a podcast, the Big Suck. Oh, 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 Bem.

[Ben Bullen]

Ah, thank you sir Noel. Look, the, the household vacuum cleaner is pretty common. Now it's maybe not considered a crucial household item the way that a refrigerator would be or the way that air conditioning would be, but it definitely makes life easier. To your earlier point, especially if we have children or kids in the household,

[Noel Brown]

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 carpet. Broom and dustpan's not gonna help you out on a carpet. Cause all those little bits of crud, they get stuck in the fibers of the carpet. And a lot of modern vacuums even have little rotating drums of little brushies that kind of help dislodge some of that stuff. Again, shout out to Shark. It eats dust alive. They can have that. They can have that.

[Ben Bullen]

That's a good phrase. It eats dust alive. So this is prescient here, Noel, because the modern vacuum cleaner comes to us via similar earlier inventions picture like a steampunk 1800s version of a made for TV ad where someone is sweeping carpet and saying there has to be a better way.

[Noel Brown]

Well, there is a better way be. And it came along in the form of the handy dandy long handled rolly 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 gotta 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.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Folks, we 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 named Melville R. Bissell of Grand Rapids, Michigan. There's something about Bissell that makes me think of nominative determinism.

[Noel Brown]

For sure. Don't know what the. What it. Yeah, it's just got a, it's got a certain vibe and I wonder.

[Ben Bullen]

It's a, it's a slant rhyme with bristle.

[Noel Brown]

That could well be. You nailed it, Ben. And I want to say, while the Bissell 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, it's sort of like almost like a, like a throwback kind of thing.

[Ben Bullen]

It's like what you see in theaters.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, geez Louise. No, I recognize the logo. Of course it still exists. It's got the little triangle, 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.

[Ben Bullen]

They're still in the game. Melville Bissell patented his design way back in 1876. 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 Bissell improved the earlier concepts. These were all mechanical, right? Because electricity wasn't really a thing for most people. They had a series of belts and gears or rollers instead of electric power. You can see them 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.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, man, you mentioned steampunk. I don't think we said it out loud in the doc here, but I can't imagine what Emmanuel Vac must have been like. It really does strike me as a bit of a bellows driven steampunk concern. Right? Oh yeah, yeah.

[Ben Bullen]

We've got a picture here. In the research, you could create the vacuum action through, as you said, or fans.

[Noel Brown]

It looks like a musical instrument.

[Ben Bullen]

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 The Baby Daisy.

[Noel Brown]

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 me right now, uses that instrument a lot. And it actually featured in the plot of Punch Drunk Love, the P.T. anderson movie. But yeah, 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 meant grimy, of course, as we're looking at a vintage example, and then it appears. Is that a crank on the side or is that part of. No, that's part of another piece of equipment in the thing. So how would it actually operate?

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, it's positively something from the world of Dr. Seuss.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah.

[Ben Bullen]

You need two people to operate it. Yeah. One person stands at the base of those bellows we mentioned earlier, moving the bellows back and forth. The other guy is what I'd like to call the hoseman. The hoseman is using the manual vacuum power from the hose to suck up stuff that goes into a cotton bag inside the device.

[Noel Brown]

Ooh, who gets to be the bag man? Is my question.

[Ben Bullen]

That's crazy, because they did have to empty this out after pretty much every use and then clean it and then let it dry out and then replace it.

[Noel Brown]

So I imagine you'd take turns alternating between who's the hose man and who's the bag.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, it feels like between the bellowsman, the hoseman, and the bagman. The bagman was kind of a short straw situation.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Because that's the one that's got to deal with all the icky. The icky bits. Don't breathe that in too deep. Even to this day, man, emptying a vacuum is. Is no joke.

[Ben Bullen]

I know I've got a vacuum right next to me off 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.

[Noel Brown]

The baby Daisy.

[Ben Bullen]

It's a cool name. There were a lot of.

[Noel Brown]

That's my main. In Mario Kart.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, yeah, you're a baby Daisy.

[Noel Brown]

Baby Daisy is absolutely a playable character in Mario Kart.

[Ben Bullen]

And we also know that a lot of these manual vacuum cleaners had similar. Similar catchy names. They started popping up in the 1860s. You see, the first motorized designs toward the end of or the turn of the 20th century. So as we get into the 1900s, this is where we have to ask how on earth did vacuums become electric? And to do that, we've got to introduce two more inventors

[Noel Brown]

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[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bullen]

I like the Goldenrod Vacuum Cleaner as well. The two inventors we were teasing, their names are Hubert Cecil Booth and David T. Kenney. So in 1910. 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. It is horse drawn.

[Noel Brown]

Jesus Christ.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, it parades through the.

[Noel Brown]

Through the streets to pull that.

[Ben Bullen]

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 thee not, folks, the Puffin Billy.

[Noel Brown]

Not to be confused with Trippin Billy by the Dave Matthews Band, which is a stone cold banger.

[Ben Bullen]

And clearly about this vacuum.

[Noel Brown]

Absolutely, Ben. No question about it. This was. I'm a little confused up. And so they paraded it through the streets. It was more like, I don't know, like a.

[Ben Bullen]

It's like a street sweeper.

[Noel Brown]

A street sweeper. But then how do they get into people's houses with those horses?

[Ben Bullen]

They didn't. This was for 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.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. Which they contributed to the. To the. To the equation.

[Ben Bullen]

Right. People were. 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. Out of horses. Thank you for the beat, Max.

[Noel Brown]

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 can convinced a judge and a jury that his machine was the only vacuum cleaner at the time that actually worked.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, yeah. Pretty good. Because now he's becoming like a Colonel Kurtz of vacuum cleaners. He's saying, you might not agree with my means, but my ends create results.

[Noel Brown]

Now, Ben, I've gotta wonder. We've talked about the great stink of London and how nasty things used to be in the olden days, which sometimes you look at a picture of that era and you can smell it. Pictures you can smell. So I've got to wonder if the argument being made for this had historical precedent in terms of, like, we need this for sanitation.

[Ben Bullen]

I think that's a really great point because the great stink of London was 1858. London is still a very dirty place.

[Noel Brown]

Soot.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. By 1901. So, yeah, that makes sense. That was probably part of the court case.

[Noel Brown]

Public health, he said, it's worth the noise. You know, again, I'm speculating here a little bit, but with all of that soot in the time where it was absolutely coal powered, everything it would be. You could definitely make the argument that it would be good. It would be for the greater good and worth perhaps. The startled horses and the interrupted naps.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, they were cleaning everywhere the Puffing Billy. After the court cases got deployed everywhere 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 26 tons of dust from the girders during a first world war outbreak of spotted fever. So this is helping people. Sorry, horses.

[Noel Brown]

Ben, I think the Puffin Billy is actually truly. Is kind of a steampunk reference. Oftentimes locomotives were called pufferbillies. There's a song talking about, see the little pufferbillies all in a row. Something about the engine driver. Puff, puff, toot, toot, and off we go. Guarantee that this was referencing something that people were familiar with.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, yeah. Which is what you always want to do when you're creating a new product. 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. We don't have a large enough area for a Puffing Billy which is 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 4,000 pounds. It is steam powered. It's got pipes and hoses reaching to all parts of the building. So it's a lot more like a vacuum cleaner version of central air conditioning.

[Noel Brown]

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.

[Ben Bullen]

Fascinating. 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 old back breaking drudgery. This is a true story. It reminded me of you guys. Back in the 1900s, these gadgets were considered so impressive that people would throw what they called vacuum cleaner parties. Yeah, like pineapples. The socialites of the day would say, oh, fellow 1 percenters, please come witness my vacuumary.

[Noel Brown]

It's like a painting party, but more bougie that's so funny. Funnier. Like a Tupperware party. Okay. Yeah. So it was a bit of a flex, almost like a salon.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh. Just so. 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 portable electric vacuum cleaner comes around in 1907. And this is courtesy of a very interesting guy named James Murray Spangler.

[Noel Brown]

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 term to janitor, perhaps. Right. And a guy with asthma, again, to the point of the whole coal 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 broom and dustpan. He was super interested in cleaning technology for various reasons. And he was a bit of a tinkerer.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. 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 guy named William Hoover in 1908, which leads to something called the Hoover Company,

[Noel Brown]

and the rest is vacuum cleaner history. Hoover, of course, basically becoming a verb for vacuuming things up today. Like I say, I'm gonna hoover that

[Ben Bullen]

up, you know, 100%. Yeah. It's an eponymous trademark.

[Noel Brown]

Always forget that word. Ben, thank you for always being so kind as to remind me. By the 1920s and 30s, vacuum cleaners were starting to become something you might see 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, we're starting to get into like the. The Sears catalog of it all, the American dream and all of that. When things were kind of starting to take on this patina of futuristic and the vat. What's more futuristic than a cleaning robot?

[Ben Bullen]

Exactly. Yes. Hoover did something really clever. They said, look, we can make a little bit of money or a significant amount of money peddling 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. I want to give a shout out to one of my favorite websites for this. They're a little biased. Edisonvacuums.com They're a Tennessee based company. By the 1940s as Edison tells us, we see the improvement of the upright canister vacuum. Now it's more than just a status symbol, more than just a cleaning tool. It represents the future. It's Jetsons level at this point.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, and Ben, I dropped. That's the one. You referenced it. Edisonvacuums.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. It's like an R2D2 situation. It's like a globe. It looks like a planet. It's got a 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 attachment at the end.

[Ben Bullen]

End.

[Noel Brown]

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, Ben, 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 think typically, you know what, that's not true. I have seen some cleaning companies that use backpack mounted.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh yeah.

[Noel Brown]

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 vac.

[Ben Bullen]

And there's a lot of propaganda to it. 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. The idea is now cleaning is so easy that even your dumb hubby can do it.

[Noel Brown]

And he just looks like a real special boy. He's like.

[Ben Bullen]

He's vacuuming up like a missionary.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, there's a couple images. The one you're talking about is 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 birdcage with just the dopiest grin on his face. Like he's a. Yeah, he's having a

[Ben Bullen]

ball and the bird is in the background looking at this as probably as frightened as the horses were of the puffing Billy.

[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bullen]

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 II America, we begin to see the movement towards disposable culture. Vacuum cleaner bags become disposable. They're not great for the environment, but they're 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 you just throw it away. It's the trashman's problem.

[Noel Brown]

You know, it's interesting, Ben, I actually also own a bagged, whatever you call it, a vacuum that uses a bag, a disposable bag by a company that you may remember. I think Rush Limbaugh shilled for this company back in the day. Oreck. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they're kind of popular, but I think they're more popular with older folks who remember the good old glory days of vacuum cleaners. Because this belonged to my mother and I inherited it. It, you know, from my mother when she, when she passed. So I have this orak. But you gotta Order the bags. You need the bags. It will not operate without. 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 on the horizon.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, yes, sir. And Oreck did something very clever by making their bags proprietary. It's terrible for the consumer, great for the company.

[Noel Brown]

Like, I'm buying the ink printer.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. Yep. And. And the bagless vacuums. Those are the kind with. This is embarrassing, but check this out.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, show me.

[Ben Bullen]

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 trapdoor. It's got a little trapdoor. As you're saying, you can also have the advantage of seeing how much junk is accreting in there and knowing when you need to empty.

[Noel Brown]

Well, that's the thing too, Ben. Both you and I are pet owners and pet dander and the like. If you are 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 its suck.

[Ben Bullen]

I think it's cool that you kept the Oreck, though, man.

[Noel Brown]

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.

[Ben Bullen]

You got to get the bags too, right?

[Noel Brown]

I got no bags is the problem. He got no bags.

[Ben Bullen]

He's got no bags. He's the bag man, though.

[Noel Brown]

I'm looking on Amazon right now, actually. 16 pack vacuum bags for Oreck type CC compatible with all Oreck XL upright vacuum cleaners. $20.99 for 16 bags.

[Ben Bullen]

16, okay.

[Noel Brown]

That's not awful. Guys got full stars, too, on the reviews.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, they've got a very loyal customer base, I think.

[Noel Brown]

That's right. And my mom was in that number.

[Ben Bullen]

Did I tell you guys that? Not too far away. This is going to sound crazy. You don't have to believe me. But not too far away from the Waffle House museum over in Avondale, where we visited researching our Waffle House episode. For a long, long time, there was a vacuum cleaner store. And ever since Breaking Bad debuted, I was convinced it was a grift.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, well, you gotta think, too. I mean, there used to be just standalone vacuum cleaner repair operations because you needed them. 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 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 repaired. They want you to send them back to the company. Yeah.

[Ben Bullen]

Planned obsolescence as well. They want you to buy the new one. But of course, who are we to disparage the good folks at places like Hoover Orec. Or of course, the Ferrari of vacuums. Dyson. And what was it? What was that other one? Shark.

[Noel Brown]

Shark.

[Ben Bullen]

Sharp shark.

[Noel Brown]

The Sharknado. That's not. I think it's a missed opportunity, though. But yeah, shark.

[Ben Bullen]

So for better or worse, now 98% of US homes have a vacuum cleaner, which is a crazy business success story considering that only 30% of homes had a vacuum cleaner of any sort in the 1930s through the 40s.

[Noel Brown]

These.

[Ben Bullen]

It's because they're cheaper now. It's because there are more people in the market. One of the weirdest facts recently that we learned while we were putting this together is that out of all of the United States, the tiny. I almost called them the tiny nation, the tiny state of Delaware vacuums the most often. Oh, oh.

[Noel Brown]

Call back to Wayne's World. Hey, we're in Delaware.

[Ben Bullen]

Delaware.

[Noel Brown]

Nothing to do in Delaware except vacuum and launder money, apparently as well.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, probably. You know what? It's all starting to make sense now that you say that. Of course the people who run money laundering are gonna be great at vacuuming.

[Noel Brown]

Delaware residents vacuum the most. Cause they're cleaning that money. This is. Hey, if anyone doesn't get the reference, there is a whole thing we've talked about on stuff that I want you to know about how you'll often see businesses incorporated in Delaware because they have. 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, let's just say, are a little, I don't know, kinder and gentler. Ben, do you remember.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah, Corporate friendly.

[Noel Brown]

There you go.

[Ben Bullen]

They encourage investment and they're willing to have an open conversation with you about your liability or taxes.

[Noel Brown]

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 to, you know, Death of a Salesman and all of that stuff? The. The Bygone era of door to door salesmen. I think one of those very much that we see parodied often or shown in cartoons or sitcoms was the person that would come to your door with a vacuum and they would like dump a bag of dirt on your, on your carpet. And then you're like, what are you doing, you madman? Wait a minute, wait a minute. And then they would vacuum it up and you'd be be mind blown and you would of course shell out and get the latest vacuum.

[Ben Bullen]

Yeah. And given our stereotypes of the 1950s, 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 what were those things?

[Noel Brown]

Bennies. Whatever those painkillers were, they were amphetamines.

[Ben Bullen]

Oh, geez.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah.

[Ben Bullen]

All right.

[Noel Brown]

They call them popping bennies, but I can't remember what Benny's is short for. But yes.

[Ben Bullen]

Benzo.

[Noel Brown]

Benzo. No. Benzodiazepines are like dopey drugs. I'm sorry, I've been watching the first season of True Detective again. Oh, I love it. Very, very good. Interesting timing to check it out right now, y', all. If you wanna, 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. Rust Cole. But yeah, traveling vacuum sal 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 these in home demonstration tactics to sell these high end vacuum cleaners. And of course you would also see a certain amount of pyramid schemes to the whole deal. Yeah,

[Ben Bullen]

we have a bit of a pyramid scheme here in our podcast, folks, because we like to teach these future episodes while we wrap up the first one. 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 gonna get super into national anthems in our very next episode.

[Noel Brown]

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, 6News in Tennessee. Hey, how about that Alcoa Alcoa woman regrets purchase from traveling salesmen after long refund dispute 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 Donna McClendon 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.

[Ben Bullen]

Well, that's how they make the money, right in 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 Alec Williams who composed this slap and bop. And you know, honestly, thanks to the people who invented the vacuum. Holy smokes. No, I'm looking at it. The vacuum I just showed you that I have it is also a shark. I just never checked.

[Noel Brown]

You are a shark man. Hey my brother, welcome to the club. You didn't even know you were in it. Huge thanks Christopher Haciotis and Eve's Jeff Goats here in spirit. And of course Ben, thanks to you for doing the research on this absolute gem of an episode on vacuums. Didn't suck at all. See you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Ben Bullen]

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[Ben Bullen]

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[Noel Brown]

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