Josephine Cochrane: Inventor

Josephine Cochrane, born March 8, 1839, invented and patented the dishwasher, an appliance used by millions of people today. In 1870, Josephine and William Cochrane were among the social and political elite in Shelbyville, a small town outside the Springfield, Illinois, the state capital. William was an up-and-coming politician and Josephine enjoyed throwing dinner parties. She loved everything about entertaining except for one thing: washing all the dishes, glasses and cutlery left at the end of the night.

Why would a wealthy hostess be washing the dishes? She had servants, but when too many of her valuable porcelain plates were clean, but chipped and damaged, she rolled up her sleeves and took over the dishwashing. Josephine’s dishwashing days didn’t last long and neither did her patience with finding someone who could create a machine that would do the washing for her.

So, in her typical “I’ll do it myself” fashion, Cochrane set out to invent a machine that would eventually become the automated dishwasher we know today.

Luckily, Cochrane was born into a family of inventors and engineers. Her grandfather, John Fitch, obtained the first patent for a steamboat and operated a steamboat route between Trenton and Philadelphia. Her father, John Garis, was a civil engineer who had been involved in developing Chicago and later supervised mills along the Ohio River. No doubt her family’s history of working with mechanical water equipment played an important role in her approach to inventing a better way to wash dishes.

But, Cochrane wasn’t the first person to try to build a dishwasher. In 1850, Joel Houghton designed a wooden wheel with scrubbers and a spray for hot water that had to be manually cranked. Ten years later in 1860, L.A. Alexander produced a machine that spun the dishes through a tub of hot water. Neither did the job well.

Cochran’s design combined gears, pistons, pipes, racks and a motor that applied water pressure. The racks had compartments that firmly and safely held dishes tucked inside a wheel. As the motor turned the wheel, soap squirted onto the dishes. Pistons pumped water to wet and rinse the load in two cycles.

Water pressure was the secret sauce that made the design a success. Applying the right force of water left the dishes clean without damaging them. And it could clean more dishes and faster than if done manually.

It was no surprise, that when Cochrane shared her ideas with a few men for their feedback, she was met with skepticism. “They knew I knew nothing, academically about mechanics and they insisted on having their own way with my invention until they convinced themselves my way was better.” Mechanic George Butters was one of the few men who did offer helpful advice, eventually creating the prototype that she would submit for a patent.

In 1883, Cochrane’s husband died, leaving her with a large house and in debt. Suddenly Cochrane’s idea might not only be a practical solution to a mundane housekeeping task, but also a potential source of income. By the end of 1886, after more tweaking and fine-tuning, she received a patent for the “Garis Cochrane DishWashing Machine.”

Cochrane knew women hated dishwashing – “what women does not?” she asked. But spending $75-$100 — the equivalent of $2800 today — was an extravagance, so Cochrane initially targeted restaurants and hotels. In 1897, her first sales were to The Palmer House and The Sherman House, two large iconic Chicago hotels.

In the early 1898, with George Butters as manager, she started Garis Cochrane Manufacturing, which enabled her to supply dishwashers to nine hotels at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The Expo also became an excellent opportunity for Cochrane to market her invention. Held over six months, the Expo was a World’s Fair showcasing new ideas and inventions. It introduced visitors to the world’s first Ferris wheel, moving walkway, Morse code telegraph and electrical lamps. Cochrane’s dishwasher was displayed in Machinery Hall, the building featuring the latest technology where it was viewed by many of the 27 million visitors to the fair. To her delight, it won an award for “best mechanical construction, durability and adaptation to its line of work.”

Her success at the Expo brought new clients, including hospitals and colleges who were impressed by the sanitizing benefits of the hot water. As homes began installing boilers that could heat water up to the high temperature dishwashers required, Cochrane began making scaled down dishwashers that could fit in a home kitchen, adding the consumer market to sales. It would be decades more before the dishwasher would become a common item in kitchens.

A remarkable businesswoman and inventor who defied stereotypes about women for her time, Cochrane covered miles of territory, traveling from Mexico to Alaska to sell her dishwasher until the year before she died. After her death in 1913, the company was sold twice, eventually becoming part of Kitchen-Aid, which today is now owned by Whirlpool. In 2006, she was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

©2023 Alice Look
Co-founder, Remarkable Women Project.org
Executive Producer, Remarkable Women Project