Vacuum Firm’s Earl Hoover

H. Earl Hoover, the former chairman of Hoover Co., the vacuum cleaner manufacturer, and an executive credited with making famous Hoover’s longtime slogan, died Wednesday in a Highland Park hospital.

He was 94 and a nephew of the company’s founder, W. H. Hoover. Hoover had retired as chairman and honorary director of the North Canton, Ohio, company in 1974.

Hoover developed many patents for the suction sweeper and helped popularize the Hoover slogan, “It beats as it sweeps, as it cleans.”