The Vintage Hoover Emporium

Manufactured: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Motor: Single-speed Robbins and Myers (final examples used first Hoover-made motors). Brass sleeve bearings requiring regular manual oiling

Bag: Spreader-top, chemically-treated white sateen

Chassis: Unpolished sand-cast aluminium

Handle: Wooden broom-type

Brush-roll: Boar-hair bristle-only

Price: £25

Sold Alongside:  N/A

Info:

After being manufactured at Hoover's plant in Hamilton, Ontario, the cleaners were shipped to Hoover’s London Depot. They were sold door-to-door, and through upmarket deparment stores Harrods and Selfridges.

The sateen bag was chemically-treated with a dust-proof film. Hoover recommended that the bag never be washed, brushed, or even turned inside-out, because this caused damage to the chemical coating. The thin sateen material tended to wear out relatively quickly, and Hoover's Research and Development department was continually engaged in developing bag materials which provided better filteration, and were more durable.

Despite advertising claims, at £25, a Hoover cleaner was a luxury item far too expensive for most people. The average Hoover customer purchased the cleaner to be used by their servants! They found 2250 buyers in the first year alone.

Hoover was already by far the largest and best-selling manufacturer of vacuum cleaners worldwide, but in Britain, they were largely unheard of. Part of Hoover’s challenge in introducing their product to Britain was to create a market for it. They had to explain to prospective customers why they should part with so much money for an unfamiliar appliance. Their sales pitch was as follows:

Why have a vacuum cleaner?

• Cleans much more effectively than manually beating or sweeping a carpet
• Traps the dust in a bag, rather than stirring it up into the air; less messy and more hygienic
• Cleaning can be done with the rugs in place; no need to remove the rug, or the furniture
• More cost-effective than sending rugs away to be professionally cleaned

Why have The Hoover?

• Uses Hoover’s unique motor-driven brush, which sweeps and vibrates the carpet on a cushion of air, removing dirt much more effectively than suction-only cleaners. Hoover’s patent on this device prevents rival brands using a motor-driven brush until 1925
• No need to scrape the nozzle rapidly across the rug as with some rival machines – just guide The Hoover slowly back and forth
• Much gentler and less wearing on rugs than sweeping manually with a broom, or smashing with a carpet-beater
• Efficiency of design ensures cleaning takes less time
• Reduces labour - replaces a servant in the household
• Costs very little to run, and requires minimal maintenance

Manufactured: Canada, Hamilton, Ontario

Motor: 190w, fully-sealed, single-speed Hoover-made unit. Upper and lower ball-bearings

Bag: Spreader-top, black Ronac

Chassis: Highly-polished die-cast aluminium

Handle: Metal with ebony pistol grip

Brush-roll: Patented Hoover 'Agitator'

Sold Alongside: Models 543, 961/972

Price: £17.17.0, plus £3.3.0 for dusting tools

Info: 

Model 700 has a significant place in vacuum cleaner history as the first Hoover to introduce the famous ‘Agitator’ brush-roll.

The beneficial use of vibration in extracting dirt from rugs had become apparent to Hoover’s engineers soon after the initiation of their Research and Development Program in 1909. They spent the next 17 years experimenting and testing numerous different designs for enhancing the agitation of the carpet, filing patents as they went to protect their work.

By 1926, they had perfected the concept: a metal cylinder with two rows of boar-hair brush strips, and 4 polished metal beater-bars. The beater-bars tapped gently at the rug, which was lifted off the ground and held against the nozzle by the powerful suction.  This created gentle waves of vibration, shaking loose particles of grit buried deep amongst the carpet pile. This effect, known by Hoover as ‘Positive Agitation’, lead to a reported 101% increase in cleaning efficiency.

The introduction of the ‘Agitator’, protected by Hoover’s patents until 1950, gave Model 700 a distinct selling point; a feature which made it demonstrably better to all other electric cleaners. However, Model 700 also introduced a number of other significant improvements:

• First motor with upper and lower ball-bearings. These were permanently lubricated and did not require oiling by the user. Suction was 50% more powerful than Hoover’s previous model
• First model to use a rubber power cord: this was more durable and resistant to damage than previous power cords, which were cloth-coated, and tended to fray with use
• First model to use a finger-tip on/off switch: the wiring ran down the inside of the hollow metal handle, where it was protected from damage and wear
• First model to use the new ‘Ronac’ bag material: this was stronger, longer-lasting and provided a higher level of filtration than the sateen material used previously. It required no chemical or pressure treatment, and could be used straight off the loom, simplifying the manufacturing process
• First model with a highly-polished chassis and motor: made the cleaner look much more like an expensive, luxury object than former, utilitarian models
• First model to introduce Hoover’s signature orange and black colour-scheme

Pictured above is the complete Model 700 ensemble. Notice the 'Carriage Paid Home' label on the tool box uses the same orange and black design as the instruction manual, and the advertising for this model. The tool box features the words 'An Empire Product', since all Hoover products were shipped from Canada before the Perivale factory opened in west London. The tools themselves all have 'Patent Applied For' stamped on them, rather than their individual patent numbers, as found on late sets. The earliest sets of Model 700 tools come with the old upholstery nozzle with the wooden clip-off brush. The set pictured here are early second-generation tools.

Manufactured: Perivale, Greenford, Middlesex, London

Motor: 2-speed, 290w, air-cooled, Hoover-made unit

Bag: Slide-top, black Ronac

Chassis: Highly-polished aluminium

Handle: Metal with rubber grip

Brush-roll: Patented Hoover ‘Agitator’

Sold alongside: Models 425, 900, Dustette 100, Minor 200

Price: ?

Info:

Model 750 was the first cleaner to be built at the newly-completed flagship Perivale factory in West London. Aesthetically and mechanically, the 750 was similar to Model 725. However, it did introduce one useful new feature – a 2-speed motor. The higher speed was intended for regular cleaning, whilst the lower speed was for vacuuming light rugs, and for limiting noise when quiet operation was desired.

The American version of Model 750 also introduced another significant ‘first’; it was the first vacuum cleaner ever to be fitted with a headlight. Prompted by a suggestion they received from a customer, Hoover engineers set about trying to incorporate a headlight onto the front of their machine. It wasn’t practical to use a 120v bulb, because it would burn out too quickly. They soon realised they could use the field coils of the motor as a step-down transformer for a 25w bulb. The ‘Hoover Hedlite’ was useful when cleaning under furniture, and along dark corridors. It inspired the slogan, ‘It shows you the dirt you never knew you had!’