The Rise of the Swiffer Empire

It was 1999. On televisions everywhere in America, an exasperated woman appeared to be shaking years’ worth of dust from a fusty, worse-for-wear mop. In the background came a bubbly ’70s voice, intoning catchy lyrics: “This old mop makes me shake; that old vacuum makes me ache; this old rag draa-aaa-aaags me down.”

And then, a green cardboard box filled the screen, as a smiling woman and her daughter uncased a newfangled cleaning tool. “This box rocks: The radical new Swiffer sweeper. So simple to assemble,” said the narrator. The commercial cut to a dance-y cleaning montage with an equally catchy song about the new tool. And the rest really was history.

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