From Opera to Hoovers

[Joe_DS]

Today's "Vacuum of the Day" on Vacuumland--a collectables forum devoted to vacuum cleaners--features Madame Schumann-Heink singing the praises of the Hoover Vacuum cleaner:

From -- http://www.vacuumland.org/

I noticed the ad mentions her radio show -- The Hoover Sentinels ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hoover_Sentinels ) -- so this would probably date from about 1934.

I have a feeling that if you referred to your spouse as "my good wife" today, she'd probably hit you over the head with the Hoover.....

[estott]

As Jorgi Jorgeson put it:

"I look at nightgowns for my vife,
Dose black ones trimmed in red.
But, I don’t know her size,
And so, she'll get a carpet sveeper instead."

[Joe_DS]

Coming from Minnesota, I grew up on Jorgi Jorgeson, and with "Sven & Ollie" jokes, which I can't tell on a family-friendly public forum.

When you think about it, a brand new Hoover, which cost about $65.00 in the mid-to-late 1930s based on what I've seen in old ads, would have been one heck of an expensive present for any "good wife." That would be about $1,100 to $2,000 in today's money, depending on which inflation conversion scale you use.

Of course, all of this assumes that the home in question had electricity--something that was true for only a fraction of homes outside of urban areas in the mid-1930s. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_elec ... ted_States ) Oddly enough, by that time the mechanical suction vacuum cleaner was a thing of the past with the last of the Scott & Fetzer (later, Kirby) "Wireless Vacuettes" having gone out of production about ten years earlier. Guess the "good wife" who lived on a farm was still cleaning her rugs with a carpet beater.

[STARR-OLA]

There is alot of old cool hoovers still around to buy but i dont like the sound as much as my columbias .

[Uncle Vanya]

Coming from Minnesota, I grew up on Jorgi Jorgeson, and with "Sven & Ollie" jokes, which I can't tell on a family-friendly public forum.

When you think about it, a brand new Hoover, which cost about $65.00 in the mid-to-late 1930s based on what I've seen in old ads, would have been one heck of an expensive present for any "good wife." That would be about $1,100 to $2,000 in today's money, depending on which inflation conversion scale you use.

Of course, all of this assumes that the home in question had electricity--something that was true for only a fraction of homes outside of urban areas in the mid-1930s. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_elec ... ted_States ) Oddly enough, by that time the mechanical suction vacuum cleaner was a thing of the past with the last of the Scott & Fetzer (later, Kirby) "Wireless Vacuettes" having gone out of production about ten years earlier. Guess the "good wife" who lived on a farm was still cleaning her rugs with a carpet beater.

Rural electrification had to wait until the advent of the REA, but the small towns which drained farm areas were generally electrified by the 1920's in most of the settled part of the country, save parts of the deep south and the thinly settled far west.

[estott]

When I hear "Carpet Sweeper" I don't think vacuum cleaner, I think one of those Bissell sweepers you push around.

[Joe_DS]

...Rural electrification had to wait until the advent of the REA, but the small towns which drained farm areas were generally electrified by the 1920's in most of the settled part of the country, save parts of the deep south and the thinly settled far west.

My mother, who is now 87, lived on a farm in Benton County, Minnesota, in the late 1920s until 1933 when the farm was lost due to the depression and an extended drought. She said that while the barn had electricity, via a generator, the house didn't. (No plumbing either, though there was a pump in the kitchen.) There was electricity, though, in the surrounding towns -- Gilman, Popple Creek, Sauk Rapids, etc.

Joe