Not sure if those are tubing or reinforcing arms. If it is tubing it might be oil ports, everything had a grease and oil port in those days.
The whole vacuum looks like the designer was just figuring it out as he went and just added things here and there. It might have started life as a pneumatic bellows sweeper and then it was modified into an electric suction cleaner.
I have an early Pneuvac bellows sweeper myself, one of their low end models, and its kind of wonky. No front wheels, it relied on the "finely polished" metal soleplate to provide the motion. Has just one big fat roller wheel at the back like a steamroller to power the bellows. It's comically unstable trying to use it, and it wants to flop around all over the place.
