Invention: Dishwasher

Inventor: Josephine Cochrane

The invention of the dishwasher is interesting, because of some interesting facts surrounding the invention.

We have a lady inventor here, Ms Josephine Cochrane. And, she probably had the “inventing gene” – after all, her grandfather, John Fitch, invented the steamboat.

The story is that she invented it out of necessity. Josephine found that her servants were chipping her china while washing and cleaning them. She looked around for something useful which would have prevented that from happening. Unfortunately, the only “dishwasher invention” that was available at that time was a hand-powered mechanical device invented by Joel Houghton. Joel had filed for a patent for that invention around 1850s.

So, Josephine started working on some kind of device which would protect her china. And she succeeded soon, and became the lady inventor of dishwasher by around 1886.

The invention was used only by hotels and restaurants initially, but the popularity of the dishwasher grew soon, and the rest is history (or maybe, “her-story” in this case)

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