If after a dinner with family or friends you discovered that your dishwasher was missing, what would you do? The dishwasher is one of the most valuable appliances in the kitchen: it allows us to save time, effort, and above all, precious resources like water. But who do we owe this truly brilliant invention to? The credit goes to a woman who—needless to say—loved cooking for many people: Josephine Cochrane.
The Story of The Dishwasher
Josephine Cochrane was a woman passionate about cooking, one of the prominent figures in Shelbyville, Illinois: she was a wealthy woman who loved hosting dinners and gastronomic gatherings with friends, all aided by what was then called servants, which fortunately no longer exist today. Tired of seeing broken and chipped dishes after washing, she one day exclaimed, "If no one has invented a dishwashing machine yet, I will do it myself!" How did she do it?
The first step was to measure the various pieces that made up the dinner sets: everything was catalogued and drawn, so as to create containers with the most suitable shape for each piece. These parts would then be inserted into a horizontal, wheel-shaped "cage."
Secondly, she designed a rotating copper boiler that could contain all these compartments. Finally, he completed his new creation with a manual motor that poured first hot soapy water and then clean hot water over the dirty dishes. Once the washing was complete, the containers could be removed and the dishes dried.
Once the components had been designed, Josephine enlisted the help of a friend, George Butters, who was also a mechanic for the Illinois Central Railroad. When Butters built the new invention, they showed it to friends and acquaintances. The first automatic dishwashing system was presented at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. After winning first prize in 1897, Josephine opened her own factory, the Garis-Cochran Manufacturing Company, which would later become Kitchen Aid and be subsequently acquired by Whirlpool.
However, it was not Cochrane who made it a household object, but William Howard Livens who, in 1924, patented a smaller and more technological model, just at the time when running water plumbing systems were beginning to spread in private homes.
It was practically the first modern dishwasher: it had most of the elements that make up today's dishwashers, including a drying system that was added in 1940.
The dishwasher's success came after the 1950s and saw a boom in the 1970s and 1980s when most American families were able to afford a model, thanks in part to a reduction in production costs. The history of the modern dishwasher was heavily influenced by Whirlpool, which had already launched the first proprietary-brand automatic washing machine in 1948.
Sadly, Josephine Cochrane never lived to see the enormous success of her invention and the true revolution it brought to people's homes, as she died of a nervous breakdown in 1913 – her company was acquired in 1926 by KitchenAid, which was in turn acquired by Whirlpool Corporation – but her work will surely be remembered forever.
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