Credited to Spain. Jalón is widely called the inventor of the mop in Spain, but Wikipedia describes his patents as improvements to the mop and bucket system, and mops existed elsewhere earlier. His credible claim is to the Spanish fregona design with its wringer bucket.
How it began
Manuel Jalón Corominas was born in Logroño in 1925, studied aeronautical engineering and served as an officer of the Spanish Air Force. In 1956 he put together the first version of the fregona: a broomstick, a set of cotton strips and a bucket fitted with pedal-driven rollers to squeeze the water out. According to one account he displayed it in a shop. He died in Zaragoza in 2011.
How it works
The fregona is a stick with a head of absorbent cotton strips, used together with a bucket that wrings the head out. In the 1956 version the wet strips were pulled between rollers worked by a pedal on the bucket. In 1959 Jalón replaced the rollers with a funnel full of holes set into the bucket: the mop head is pressed and twisted into the funnel and the water drains through the holes. DMG-Lib describes this second design as the mop known today.
How it spread
By 1980 the fregona was sold in about 30 countries. In that year Jalón sold his business to the Dutch multinational Curver, after which the product was manufactured and exported to about 60 countries. Jalón went on to other work in product design: in 1973 he invented a two-piece disposable syringe, which replaced glass syringes that had to be boiled before they could be used again.
What changed first
Before the fregona, people cleaning floors in Spanish homes had to kneel down to scrub and wring cloths by hand. The handle and the wringer bucket meant that the same work could be done standing, without putting hands in the water. The move from rollers to a simple perforated funnel in 1959 made the bucket cheaper and easier to make, and the use of plastic allowed the design to be patented internationally.
