June 8, 1869: Ives McGaffey receives a patent for a machine he built in his Chicago basement, a device later deemed to be the first vacuum cleaner. Very little is known about this early sweeper for two reasons. First, McGaffey calls his invention “The Whirlwind”—a name that product branding consultants might say suggests chaos and disorder rather than cleanliness and uniformity. Second, as door-to-door salesmen quickly and unhappily discovered, few houses had electrical outlets in which to plug the demonstration models. As electricity became more widely available, more inventors got into the game and eventually refined the vacuum cleaner into an indispensable household appliance. But consumers remained unsatisfied, and several VC-backed startups are designing new, improved machines that work without homeowners actually having to push them around. The problem with these devices, as door-to-door salesman have quickly and unhappily discovered, is that few homeowners have the telekinetic powers required to move the devices across their filthy carpets.—
Jeffrey Kanige
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