Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
Ever been told that using a dishwasher is the only way to avoid breaking delicate crystal champagne flutes when cleaning them? A similar story about a dishwasher that "Handles the finest China without chipping or breaking", as extracted from the included advertisement poster, is purported to have actually inspired the invention of the washing machine in the first place. So indeed, this is a story, and its vairations, that has endured since the 1880s!
The first mechanical dishwasher to use water pressure, instead of scrubbers, to clean dishes, was invented by a woman, called Josephine Garis-Cochrane.
Her invention is recited in US patent No. 355139, titled Dish-washing machine, an 11-page document, containing 15 drawings, filed on December 31, 1885, and granted on December 28, 1886. The invention basically comprises a continuous stream of soapy or hot water supplied to a rotating crate, containing racks or cages, designed to contain the dishes and cutlery. The crate rotates so that all portions of the racks or cages receive the supply of alternatively soapy or hot water. The valves, pumps, pistons and levers actuating the machine, the tanks and conduits removing and supplying the water, as well as the design of the wire racks for holding the dishes and cutlery, are all recited, in detail, in the nineteenth-century patent document.
The Garis-Cochrane dish-washing machine was exhibited at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 where it won a distinguished award. The 1893 Chicago World fair was called the World’s Columbian Exposition as it celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus, arriving in America, in 1492.
Commercial production of the Josephine Garis-Cochrane dish-washing machine began in 1897. The Garis-Cochran Manufacturing Company she founded was bought by Kitchen Aid in 1916.
Below, a patent drawing of the Garis-Cochrane cutlery rack, and above, a nineteenth-century poster advertising the Garis Cochrane dish-washing machine.
References
Josephine Cochrane
Kitchen Aid
World’s Columbian Exposition – Encyclopedia of Chicago
