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The Hoover 150 marked a turning-point in the history of the vacuum-cleaner. Its designer, Henry Dreyfuss, rethought every feature of the product and in so doing achieved a perfect marriage of form and function.

The Hoover 150 marked a turning-point in the history of the vacuum-cleaner. Its designer, Henry Dreyfuss, rethought every feature of the product and in so doing achieved a perfect marriage of form and function.
Hoover was founded in 1908. Its innovation was to produce vacuum-cleaners with lighter engines than the prototype, with an aluminium casing. They heralded the era of modern electrical suction-cleaning, and became so popular that vacuum-cleaners are generally referred to as "hoovers" in English.
In the Forties and Fifties, hoovers had the pure, elongated lines of the 1936 Model 150, the first of a number of models designed by Henry Dreyfuss for the firm. The shape of the 150 sweeper vacuum-cleaner is typical of the streamlined design of the period - fluid, dramatically curved, aerodynamic and smooth-surfaced. This was the style that helped American industry become profitable again in the 1930s. This was the age of speed, and designers shaped the most banal everyday objects to look like sports-cars and even - in the case of the Hoover vacuum-cleaner - equipped them with headlights.
The fluid, smooth lines of the new models made full use of the new techniques of sheet metal stamping and shell moulding of metal (often aluminium) alloys, with a glossy finish which reflected every detail of the object's surroundings, thereby multiplying the owner's satisfaction in his or her household possessions.