Spangler was an
asthmatic. He worked as a janitor at Zollinger's Dry Goods Store in
Canton, Ohio. He was looking for a way to reduce the dust in his workplace that aggravated his asthma. He suspected that the carpet sweeper he used on the job was the source of his cough. A tinkerer at heart, he set his mind to making an electric
carpet sweeper. While watching a rotary
street sweeper in operation, Spangler got the idea to mount the motor from a
ceiling fan onto a carpet sweeper and cut a hole in the back of the sweeper to attach fan blades which would blow dirt out of the rear of the cleaner into an attached dirt bag (a pillow case he borrowed from the store). He attached a leather belt from the motor shaft to the wood cylinder brush roll and a broom stick provided the handle. In his next attempt he used a wooden
soap box as the main body. He used his invention successfully in cleaning the Follwell Building. Bringing his ingenuity to bear on the problem, Spangler fashioned a tin box, a pillowcase, an electric fan, and a broom handle into something we might recognize today as a crude vacuum cleaner. Spangler called it a "suction sweeper." Despite being primitive and unwieldy, it worked—Spangler's asthma abated, and he received a
patent for his troubles. He also realized that he might finally have a saleable invention. Spangler first tested his invention in 1907. During the next year, he refined the vacuum numerous times, and on June 2, 1908, he received a patent for his sweeper. He refined the patent several times from 1909 to 1913. Spangler, with invested by a friend, formed the Electric Suction Sweeper Company. Ray Harned, nephew and financial representative of F. G. and W. H. Follwell, formed a partnership with Spangler in the fall of 1907. The Follwells had financed Zollingers and were financing Spangler who had filed an application for a patent in September 1907. In the fall and early winter of 1907, they began manufacturing the suction sweeper. However, in just a few months, finances were gone. Spangler didn't have the capital to mass-produce his gadget. So he showed the suction sweeper to his cousin Susan Hoover, who tried it, liked it, and extolled its virtues to her husband,
William Henry Hoover, a leather-goods manufacturer. In August 1908, he dissolved his partnership with the Follwells and formed the Hoover Suction Sweeper Company. In its first year, they built a plant in Canton and afterward moved to
New Berlin. The timing was fortuitous. With the automobile gaining popularity, William Hoover was concerned about the market for his
horse collars and harnesses, and was eager to diversify. In 1908 he bought Spangler's patent, and he soon had a small staff toiling in the corner of his leather shop, turning out six suction sweepers a day. William Hoover made further improvements to the vacuum cleaner that resembled a bagpipe attached to a cake box, a novel look that was very functional. Sluggish sales of the Hoover vacuum cleaner were given a kick by Hoover’s ten-day, free home trial. Hoover came up with the idea of door-to-door salesmen who gave home demonstrations of the new vacuum cleaners. Hoover's success means that most people today associate the vacuum cleaner with him, rather than with Spangler. ==Later years==