Vacuum
date: label: Date made
content: 1927
name: label: maker
content: Hoover Company
notes: label: Description
content: Although the vacuum cleaner had been invented in the early 20th century, the mass production and sales of vacuum cleaners did not take off until the economic boom that followed the decade after the First World War (1914-1918). This Hoover vacuum model 700 was produced between 1926 and 1929 and was the first of its kind to feature an aluminum body, an on/off switch, and the agitator brushroll—an innovation that used metal beater strips to vibrate pieces of dirt from carpets. The vacuum was one of the many supposedly labor saving devices marketed in the 1920s that promised to liberate middle-class women, now managing their houses without live-in maids, from the drudgery of housework. Accordingly advertisements for the Hoover 700 depicted a chic flapper of the late 1920s using the vacuum. Although the vacuum did clean more thoroughly than the broom and dustpan, the popularization of such appliances created more exacting standards of cleanliness thus making the hope of simplified housework largely illusory.
place: label: Place Made
content: United States: Ohio, North Canton
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
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content: Family & Social Life
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content: Domestic Furnishings
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content: Artifact Walls exhibit
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Betty B. Ross
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1990.3134.01
label: catalog number
content: 1990.3134.01
label: nonaccession number
content: 1990.3134
label: catalog number
content: 1990.3134.1 A,B
objectType: label: Object Name
content: vacuum cleaner
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: cloth (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: rubber (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 104 cm x 31 cm; 40 15/16 in x 12 3/16 in