Red and white promotional two part card advertising five models of the Daisy Vacuum Cleaner from the early 20th century.
Daisy Vacuum Cleaners were designed in France and built in England in the 1910s. The two Baby models shown were manually powered devices which needed two people, one to work the bellows to create suction and one to use the cleaning hose. Many households at this time had domestic servants to do the cleaning.
The first picture on the left, is of the Daisy No 2 Sweeper which required only one person to operate it, but had very limited power to just pick up crumbs.
Electric cleaners had been invented but many houses did not have electricity and there was a real fear of electrocution.
The card was found under the floorboards at Martin and Silvers clothing and shoe shop at 1, Buttermarket, Thame, during renovation work in 1980
During a class visit with students from Lord Williams School, one pupil chose this as an object he would like to see displayed on the museum website, because he thought it was ‘weird, brilliant’ and that people would be interested in it.
