Child's Bissell's Junior carpet sweeper. Manufactured by Bissell Carpet Sweeper Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, 1928.

This is a fully working model of Bissell's miniature Junior carpet sweeper. The domestic carpet sweeper was one of the great successes of the nineteenth century. The idea was a down-sized version of the commercial street-sweeping machines developed by Joseph Whitworth in England in 1842. The USA took the lead; the best known and most successful machines being built by Melville Reuben Bissell, an Ohio china seller. He devised and patented his sweeper in 1876, to overcome his dust allergy caused by the straw packing in his china storerooms. The Bissell Junior miniature was 'suitable for ladies' and very convenient for reaching between furniture. It looked up to the full-size sweeper, but down to the Bissell Baby, which was only five inches wide.