Today, the Hoover Europe brand, as part of the portfolio of brands owned by Chinese multinational home appliances company Haier remains a major player in the European white goods and floor care sectors in a number of countries.

The first upright vacuum cleaner was invented in June 1908 in North Canton, Ohio, by department store janitor and occasional inventor James Murray Spangler.

[4] In the early 1930s, the company retained the services of Henry Dreyfuss, an up-and-coming industrial designer, to give the Hoover lineup a much needed update.

Before Dreyfuss's involvement with the company, the majority of the machines manufactured consisted of a black motor and an aluminum base; this was the norm for more than twenty years.

For the first time since the introduction of the Hoover vacuum cleaner, the mechanical workings were completely concealed from sight by a Bakelite cover.

Since the release of this design, all Hoover cleaners consisted of a fluid base and a hood to cover the electric motor.

Faced with a total lack of interest by the public in his expensive and unfamiliar new gadget, Hoover placed an ad in The Saturday Evening Post offering customers ten days' free use of his vacuum cleaner to anyone who requested it.

At this time, it referred to the action of the revolving brushes, which vibrated the carpet and helped loosen the trodden-in grit.

It used a Model 575 motor with a modified suction impeller, which was mounted on a unique aluminum body with runners, allowing the cleaner to be pulled behind the user.

It had a time to empty bag indicator;[7] automatic height adjustment; a magnesium body, which made it weigh less than previous models; instant tool conversion; and a two-speed motor.

One of the first Dreyfuss designs for Hoover, it was the symbol of the machine age; the beautiful Bakelite hood hid the entire motor from view and there were no protruding knobs or gadgets.

From 1941 to 1945, Hoover ceased all vacuum cleaner production and converted the North Canton, Ohio factory to support the war effort.

When World War II ended in 1945, Hoover started producing cleaners again and unveiled the Model 27 for post-war America to enjoy.

However, new to Model 65, and slightly later in Britain on the 652A, was the introduction of a switch which automatically shifted the motor to a higher speed as the converter was inserted.

In 1986, the Hoover family sold the company to the Chicago Pacific Corporation, which was created using the remnants of the bankrupt Rock Island Railroad.

Hoover had initially announced its closure intentions on Tuesday, 18 November 2008, beginning a period of staff consultation.

The company was established in the town just over sixty years prior, its factory at Pentrebach, Merthyr Tydfil, opening on 12 October 1948.

Current details of the product range available to consumers can be found by visiting the Hoover website for the market of interest.

[19] In 2004, Maytag announced that it would consolidate its corporate office and back-office operations in Newton, Iowa, and close almost all of Hoover's overlapping functions.

Like many manufacturing companies in the United States, Hoover is experiencing pressures as consumers demand lower-priced goods.

Hoover Australia had its own administration, sales and marketing, large maintenance and engineering departments, a service division, and a much larger production workforce.

At that time, in the early 1990s, Hoover was making healthy profits, as a result of investment in new technology and machinery through the late 1980s, a big drive towards quality improvement, and a very flexible workforce.

That sparked a fight between Email Limited and Southcorp, two of Australia's largest white goods manufacturers for a commercial sale.

In March 1996, Southcorp began a big rationalization, sacking workers at the Hoover factory involved in maintenance, stores, administration and supervision.

[22] In April, 1999, Southcorp Appliances, including Hoover, Dishlex and Chef, was sold, meaning that Email had obtained a conservative 60 percent share of the Australian whitegoods market.

[citation needed] After the Southcorp takeover, a culture of fear was introduced, based on a concerted campaign to strip all the indirect labor from the workforce, and a myth that the factory was inefficient and unproductive.

[21] In the late 1990s, Email closed the Meadowbank factory and integrated its whitegoods manufacturing into the Simpson plant in South Australia.

In 1992, the British division of Hoover announced the Hoover free flights promotion, the demand for which rose far beyond the company's expectations, resulting in major costs and public relations problems for the British division and Maytag, which eventually led to its sale to the Italian manufacturer Candy.

In the United States, Hoover's competition includes: Royal, Dirt Devil, Oreck, and Vax (all of which are owned by Hoover's Hong Kong owner Techtronic Industries);[25] Kirby; Rexair; Eureka; Dyson; Electrolux; Panasonic; Bissell; and Kenmore (the house brand of American store chain Sears, which is manufactured predominantly by Panasonic and Sanyo).

Dyson and Electrolux lead the list of UK competitors, followed by Bosch, Dirt Devil, SEBO, Vax, Morphy Richards, Miele, Bissell, Numatic (maker of the famous "Henry" cylinder cleaner), Zanussi, Russell Hobbs, LG, and others.