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The Hoover 750 is one of the oldest items in my collection, and represents the end of the period where the design of electrical domestic equipment started to move away from the overtly industrial look that characterized the early years of product design. The 750 was similar in appearance to far earlier machines, but evidence of making the machine more aesthetically pleasing to the consumer were emerging by 1932, the year this model was introduced. The black enamel paint and dull aluminium of the early machines were replaced by chrome, flashes of orange paint and highly polished aluminium took the design of the cleaner to resemble something more modern and technologically state of the art. But these 'improvements' were merely cosmetic. Between 1927, when the model 700 was introduced (the first cleaner to use beater bars and the earliest to be sold under the famous slogan "It Beats as it Sweeps as it Cleans") and the outbreak of World War Two, there were a dizzying array of slightly different 'new' models where the only changes made to the design were slight; the 725, 750, 800, 825, 850 and 875. This represented an early attempt at stimulating the consumer market by making machine obsolete in design very quickly, in the hope that their owners would quickly replace them with the latest model. This was especially important following the Wall Street crash and the financially depressed period of the 1930s. That the 750 is an early model is borne out by the fact that it was not manufactured in London's great cathedral to housework, the Hoover factory in Perivale, west London. This was not opened until 1935, and thus the 750 predates it by three years. The triangular badge on the nozzle proclaims that the machine is 'An Empire Product' - it was built at Hoover's Canadian plant in Hamilton, Ontario, and shipped over the the UK.
Make no mistake, when this machine was built, it was very much a luxury item, unlike its modern equivalents. Just before manufacture of these products ceased following the outbreak of World War Two, the model 875 (the last of this style of model) sold at £19.19s.0d (£19.95 in new money) - at this time, a new car could be bought for £100. But these machines were not built down to the lowest price possible. The high quality of the appliance is evident in the way that despite its 73 years, this machine is in full working order, and performs as well as the other, far more modern machines in the collection.
One of the most dramatic aspects of this cleaner is the expansion of the dustbag whilst in operation. Designed before disposable paper bags became commonplace, it was intended that these early models had their fabric bags emptied after each use. To prevent clogging the fabric and reducing suction, the dustbag was designed to expand considerably while in operation, and as can be seen, it end up almost Zeppelin-like in appearance.
The greatest testament to this machine, however, must be its condition. Although there is admittedly evidence that the cleaner went through some reconditioning in the early 1960s, this machine has proved to be in perfect working order, and after a good clean and polish, has proved itself to be perfectly capable of performing the duties it was designed for, a whole 73-odd years after it left the factory across the Atlantic.