Vintage Ads: Introducing Hoover to Homemakers

Prior to 1908, there were two ways of cleaning a carpet. One was to use a carpet sweeper, a mechanical device with brushes attached to its wheels that sweep dirt inside. The other was to lug the carpet out to the backyard, drape it over the clothes line, and smack it with a carpet beater until your arm was ready to fall off.

Then came the first upright vacuum cleaner. Patented as an “Electric Suction Sweeper,” it was built from a carpet sweeper, an electric fan, and a dust-collecting box.

It was named Hoover after the man who first marketed it to America. His idea was to place an ad in the Post offering potential customers ten days’ free use of a Hoover cleaner. When a request came in the mail, Hoover would find a retailer near the customer to whom Hoovers could be delivered and returned. By the end of the first year, over 300 Hoovers had been sold, and many of these retailers became Hoover sellers.

Years later, Hoover added a beater bar to the unit, a throwback to the old backyard, rugbeating days. It pounded the rug as it sucked up dirt and debris, which led to Hoover’s tagline: “It beats … as it sweeps … as it cleans.”

More than one husband bought a vacuum cleaner as a Christmas present for his wife. It may have lacked romance, or a recognition of the need to share housework, but it spared backaches for many a homemaker.

This article is featured in the November/December 2025 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.