No One Under 45 Years Old Can Identify What This Household Item Is. Can You?
By Dreamer

When we stop to think about it, it is amazing how many people came before us. Look at all the things in your life, your home, your car, your smartphone. All these wonderful things were built and designed by human minds that have come before. Human society builds upon itself generation after generation, ideally perfecting what came before so it can usher in more progress and greatness and ease for the people of the future.
Because things change so quickly in modern life, objects become obsolete much faster than they ever used to. Take this object for instance. Give it a good look and tell us if you can identify it. Anyone born before the mid-1970s might have a chance at it. But if you can into being in the late 70s, 80,s or 90s, you’ll probably have no idea what this thing is unless you have a passion for antiques.

This item is something that everyone has in their house to this day. But it just looks a lot fancier than the one here. And your grandmother probably owned this model or one very similar to it.
So what is this object? It has a large tube with a leather handle on it. It has sled-like boughs to rest it on the ground when not in use. And it has a hole in the top. What could it be?
It’s a vacuum cleaner! This model was popular in the 1930s and known as the Hercules Vacuum Cleaner. It was powerful for its day and was rather a popular possession for those who could get it. The design featured here had crocodile skin, so it was very expensive, especially since it was being sold at the time of the Great Depression when many people were struggling to put food on the table.

Now that you know what this object is let’s go into the history of the vacuum cleaner. You might be surprised to learn just how long humans have been using the machine to clean their homes.
The world’s first carpet sweeter came into existence in 1860 when Daniel Hess of West Union, Iowa invented it! The origin of the vacuum cleaner comes from the heartland of America.
Hess’s invention was a manual sweeper that used a rotating brush to gather up the dust. And less than a decade after he helped revolutionize home cleaning, another model named “Whirlwind” was pioneered by Ives W. McGaffey in 1869. This model was huge and bulky and not very convenient by today’s standards. But it had a belt driven fan that operated after getting cranked.
From that point on, most vacuum cleaners in the market were made for industrial settings.

The model in this picture the Tellus was introduced at the turn of the 20th century. As you can tell from the way it looks, it was made for the average consumer and usable at home.
Vacuum cleaners were a luxury home appliance until after the Second World War when they started to become more accessible for average people like you and me.
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