There has been a lot of speculation about the date of the first vacuum cleaner and the person who invented it. Some patent dates that appear in literature are 1905, 1901, and 1869. I am going to shatter everyone's thoughts with one of my own. Patent papers have revealed that a vacuum sweeper was produced by Daniel Hess in 1860. Hess, a resident of West Union, Iowa, called his invention a carpet sweeper, not a vacuum. The machine did, in fact, have a rotating brush like other sweepers, however, the machine also possessed an elaborate bellows mechanism on top of the body to generate suction. The amazing thing about his machine was that it incorporated two "water chambers" to capture the dust and fine dirt. He states that the air is cleansed as it passes through the device. This very principle is used in the Rexair vacuums of today. Until any new developments occur in the future, I believe the Hess machine to be the earliest portable vacuum cleaner in the United States.