The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 1886–1893
Cochrane's dishwasher held dishes in racks and sprayed them, not scrubbed them.
Josephine Cochrane built a machine that rained hot soapy water on dishes in wire compartments, so nothing broke and no hands were needed.
Garis-Cochran Manufacturing Company
the move
Josephine Cochrane of Illinois entertained often and was annoyed by the way help washed her fine china: plates chipped, cups cracked, and the hours were wasted when she would rather have her guests over.
In 1886 she set out to build a machine to do it faster and without breaking anything. She measured the dishes, then built wire compartments sized to fit plates, cups, and saucers, each holding a piece still.
The racks sat in a flat wheel inside a boiler; a motor turned the wheel while hot soapy water squirted from the bottom and rained down on the dishes. She patented the device on December 28, 1886.
Hotels and restaurants, where breakage was a constant and costly problem, were her real market. At the 1893 Chicago World's Fair the machine won the highest award, and Garis-Cochran Manufacturing was born.
why it works
- Holding each dish in a fitted rack removed breakage from the process
- A steady spray of hot soapy water cleans without abrasive hands
- Measuring the object first made the compartments exact rather than generic
- The market that needed it most was hotels, not homes, which built the first demand
what transfers
When the existing way is slow and damaging, change the constraint instead of the effort; a machine that holds the object still and attacks it with a steady flow beats an army of hands.
what came after
Cochrane's dishwasher won the top prize at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and paved the way for the electric dishwashers of the 1950s, when home hot water and detergents arrived. She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006.
references
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