I'm not sure what our sort did to earn a living prior 1970...
I'm not sure if you want this detour on this thread, so feel free to skip over, or split this to another thread.
On location carpet cleaners from 1960-1970 were in a number of ways, just like the owner operators today: Independent minded, multi-skilled, self starters, and otherwise unemployable. What they didn't have was the ability to find information as readily, nor mutual support, as they do today.
The "establishment" in that decade were in plant rug cleaners, who were jacket and tie businessmen, primarily Armenian or Jewish. Many of the Armenians came over here to flee persecution in Turkey and their stories are very compelling. We have Brian Hanna here who well represents Hagopian Rug Cleaners and could share Edgar's story.
But they guys like all of you were ones who learned about carpet cleaning in the home through magazines like "Popular Mechanics", where ads could be found on how to start your own business by buying a Von Shrader dry foam machine or purchasing a Duraclean franchise, which used a dry foam cleaning system that was done on your hands and knees! (Yes, you read that right).
The other way cleaners found out about this business was through members of their faith. From the 1950s through today a large number of Jehovah's Witnesses, Latter Day Saints (Mormons), Seventh Day Adventists, as well as other members of a variety of faiths, found that having a small business gave them the flexibility of schedule that their faith based duties required of them, and also an environment where they could feel free of the pressures and associations of large manufacturing industry employment. Many people of those faiths had a big impact on where the cleaning industry is today, and some are still very active in cleaning, cleaning education, and in the cleaning supply industry.
All in all, they were men of independent thinking, strong work and family ethics, and a vision to do better on their own than being a cog in the wheel.
Most of those men from that era are gone. My father, at nearly 94, is surely in the twilight of his life. But I remember so many of them, and they would fit right in with this group, and be pleased and amazed with how this industry has grown.
