At one time, people thought that blowing dust was the way to clean. Then in the 1870's Hubert Booth, and engineer, tried placing a handkerchief between his mouth and a couch and sucking in. The film of dirt on the other side of the hanky suggested that suctioning in dirt was the way to clean. Booth designed fans that sucked dust into pillow cases. He even sold some to the Queen of England.
About 30 years,the Hoover Company came out with an upright suctioning machine on rollers. The res is vacuum cleaner.