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Josephine Garis Cochrane invented the dishwasher.

She was born Josephine Garis in Valparaiso, Indiana in 1839. Her father, John Garis, was an engineer from Chicago who had invented a hydraulic pump for draining marshes. Her mother was Irene Fitch. Her great-grandfather (not her grandfather, as some sources report) was John Fitch, who obtained a US patent for a steamboat design in 1791 (note: this was not, as some sources report erroneously, the first patent for a steamboat design in the world, or even just in America.)

She was married on 13 October 1858 to William A. Cochran (1831 - 1883.) He was a merchant and a county clerk for sixteen years, a Free Mason and a member of various Democratic Party committees. They had one son, Hallie, who died at the age of two. She and her husband were founding members of the Unitarian Church at Shelbyville (called "First Congregational" back then.)

Her husband died when she was 44 in 1883. After William died, she changed the spelling of her last name to Cochrane (with an "e" at the end.) It was shortly after that, while still 44, that she invented the dishwasher.

She did her experiments in a woodshed at the back of the house, getting advice from a male friend who was an engineer. The story goes that she was tired of her servants chipping her heirloom china while washing it, but that she didn't want to wash it herself. She patented the dishwasher on 28 December 1886, obtaining US patent # 355,139, and calling it the "Garis-Cochrane Dishwasher." (An earlier, unsuccessful dishwashing machine had been patented, in 1850, by a Joel Houghton. It was made of wood, and hand-cranked, and just ineffectually splashed water on the dishes,)

She set up a company to make it called "Cochran's Crescent Washing Machine Company," and got many Shelbyville residents to invest in it.

To use her machine, you secured the dishes in wire racks, part of a cage that you lowered into a copper tub. A hand pump created jets of hot, soapy water aimed at the dirty dishes; to rinse, you raised the cage out and poured boiling water from a tea kettle, and then you let the dishes drip-dry. She had it manufactured by the Tait Manufacturing in Decatur, Illinois. She displayed and demonstrated it at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, where it was a hit and won top prize. She also sold nine of them on the spot to people who were running kitchens at the Exposition.

Her next model was motorized; it pumped the water itself, and moved the rack back and forth. She registered this one for an American patent in 1900. A subsequent model had the racks revolve, and drained itself via a hose into the sink.

Sales were mainly to restaurants and to hotels, but not to homes, owing to the price of $150. A few things had to change before it could break into households. In the early 1900s, most households didn't have large enough hotwater tanks to supply a dishwasher, and many women actually enjoyed socialising with each other after a meal in the kitchen without the men while doing dishes.

She managed her company until she died of a stroke in 1913 in Chicago. She was buried in Graceland Cemetery in Shelbyville, Illinois. Her dishwashing machine was later bought out by another company, and renamed to KitchenAid.

Her house was still standing as of 2007.

See Also:

Dishwashers

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