You won’t find a modern vacuum cleaner made out of leather, wood and metal. The one shown here, The Harvey Vacuum Cleaner, is a wooden box propelled by two small metal wheels. The cleaner was designed to suck up dust and dirt, and to be light and mobile enough to be taken around the house. On either side of the box are wooden flaps attached to the box by leather wings that create the affect of bellows. The flaps and their wings are opened and closed by moving the black metal handle on top of the wooden box back and forward. The black metal handle is bolted to a metal framework surrounding the entire bellows area and a wooden lid is attached to the central wooden box by clips and wingnuts. This opens into a fabric container inside the box that collects the dirt sucked up by the long metal tube that leads out through the wooden lid. When the bellows are activated they pull air through the fabric and up though the tube from the floor. The person doing the cleaning points the nozzle of the tube towards the dust and dirt that needed to be removed.

A wooden footrest could be placed on the floor on one side of the cleaner to keep it still and stable while is use. When the fabric container was full of dust it was unclipped from its position inside the wooden box and the dust emptied out. The metal framework held the footrest and bellows when the cleaner was stored.