Carpet Sweepers

The discovery of carpet as a viable floor covering dates way back 6000 B.C., and sheep wool was the primary material used. This provided a wonderful respite and insulation against the chilly floorboards all throughout the winter season and a more comfortable surface to walk on especially for children. Soon enough, manufacturers experimented ion their types of carpet materials used – from natural to synthetic. Hence, today we are offered with a plethora of choices when it comes to carpet styles and designs.

However, despite the wonderful attribute that carpet systems can easily lay claim to, one glaring drawback to suing this particular flooring materials is its difficulty in maintenance care. While hardwood floors mat require regular sweeping and polishing, carpet materials have soft fibers where dirt and soil can easily penetrate into and can be a nightmare to eliminate. This prompted a lot of innovative personalities to come up with a number of nifty devices that can provide a more effective carpet cleaning system.

Among the most notable inventions were the carpet sweepers, which was prevalently used long before the introduction of vacuum cleaners. The carpet sweepers history can actually be traced way back in 1876, through the novel idea of Melville Rueben Bissell, another American inventor of that time. The first designs of the old carpet sweepers consisted of a metal box that features a rotating brush that can be easily maneuvered around using a long handle. Long before its existence, housewives have to contend with the use of traditional brooms, so you can just imagine how ineffective it is to eliminate embedded dirt and dusts. To complement the regular sweeping, the heavy broadloom carpets are regularly removed off the floor and beaten with a heavy device to take out all the accumulate dusts and animal dander. Not only was such method too tedious, it is also not as effective as most carpet owners would prefer. Hence, this general discontent ushered in the invention of the mechanical carpet sweepers, all credit to the ingenuity of the American couple Anna and Melville Bissell who were based in Michigan at that time.

The couple owned a crockery shop, where the wife often ends up frustrated with the sawdust that are stubbornly lodged in the carpet. The minute particles clung to the carpet fibers, which makes cleaning quite nuisance and a painstaking task. Naturally such woes and complaints came to the attention of her husband, who coincidentally has quite a fascination with mechanism of object. This led to the ingenuous design of the carpet sweepers that generated quite an interest, which spread the news like wildfire. Soon enough, a growing number of people demanded where they could possibly purchase these carpet sweepers, which have been known to work perfectly well on uneven surfaces and pick up dirt without creating an annoying cloud of dust.

As the word got around, the couple saw this opportunity to sell their design using their buggy to pay people a door-to-door visit. This later blossomed into a highly lucrative business that resulted to the full-scale manufacture of Bissell carpet Sweeper, which was patented in 1876. Seven years later the first manufacturing plant was put up right in the heart of Grand Rapids, Michigan to take on the rising demand for the carpet sweepers all over the United States.

However, Melville Bissell fell into an untimely death in 1889, and prompted his wife Anna to step in and take full control of the company. She was later hailed to be the very first woman to ever have a corporate CEO position. She continued to take full rein up until she was 87. Today, the company still continues to be the industry leader with innovative products distributed to over 60 countries, still owned and operated by Bissell family.