The story actually also involves Air-Way. The Callahan family (who started Health-Mor) were friends with the Hill family (T. Russ Hill). Both heads of which sold portraits for the Chicago Portrait Studio in the early 1920's. Hill met with Air-Way's reps in 1926, and by 1928 was the head of operations (sales) for the state of Michigan. Hill showed Callahan the machine, but Callahan didn't want to work for anyone other than himself. The 'new' invention of the Air-Way was the moth control dispenser. The disposable bag was under patent. Scott and Fetzer's Sanitation System used the para crystals for moth control. The first two years of Health-Mor Inc. they sold the private labeled Sanitation System. In fact, Health-Mor was incorporated as "Health-Mor Sanitation Systems Inc.". Meanwhile, Mr. Hill was setting world on fire. Virtually the entire auto industry and most of Michigan owned Air-Way cleaners. HILL LEARNED HOW TO SELL SANITATION, with the Air-Way cellulose bag. This would come in handy in 1935 when Rexair hired him to head up their sales teams and open branches, and become President of the Company.
The Royal Super had been invented, as well as the Purifier. The Royal Purifier model had two 'improvements' over the Super. It featured a floating brush behind the nozzle (exactly like Filter Queen and Royal used on their straight suction rug nozzles) AND they used the moth crystals in an innovative way. They told unsuspecting housewives that sucking up the crystals would 'sterilize' the contents of the cloth bag and 'kill all the germs'. Hence the name "purifier" on a cloth bag straight suction upright. Callahan thought that the Royal was as good as Mr. Hill's Air-Way, but Health-Mor's sales were limited to Chicago and the surrounding states. Air-Way cleaners were sold all over the world by this time.
Health-Mor found they could get the private labeled Royal for less money than Scott and Fetzer was charging, and the Royal version for Health-Mor used the crystals in a unique way as well. By adding the crystals to the hose intake adapter, you can allow 'vapors' from the moth crystals to be inhaled at the same time air from the hose is going through, "killing all the germs and bacteria carried by the dust into the machine". People actually believed this. They also demonstrated how to attach the hose to the blower, and lets you blow the crystals into a closet or under a rug, etc.
Once Air-Way brought out the model 55 tank/canister, and Lux introduced the model XXX, but most importantly, because Mr. Hill (Callahan's friend) was now selling the Rexair (a round canister with no loss of suction), Callahan bought a patent involving single cyclonic separation along with a double cellulose cone shaped filter. He got Royal to design a vacuum cleaner (with a unique motor) for him, and in late 1939, Health-Mor introduced the second round canister bagless vacuum in the world. The model 200. By the late 1940's the Filter Queen had sold over a million machines.
During the war, Lamb Electric (Black and Decker before the war), designed a universal motor that most canister/tank cleaners could use. Health-Mor's designers wanted to use that motor and designed the model 350 around the motor. However, Royal wouldn't build it, claiming to have spent way too much engineering money designing the model 200. Health-Mor's design team went to Lewyt to see if they would make the model 350. Lewyt said NO. Then he copied it, and in 1947 the model 40 Lewyt with cone filter and Lamb motor went on sale. Health-Mor sued, and in 1953 received their judgement from Lewyt, which allowed them to fund their own factory in Cleveland, Ohio.
