One of my favorite shows is called “How it’s made.” It can be seen on Sunday
afternoons on the Science Channel or streaming on Roku TV. In honor of
Women’s History, we pause to reflect on remarkable women who have made an impact on our lives who we might not be aware of. Here is one such remarkable woman.
Josephine Cochran (later Cochrane; nee Garis; March 8, 1839 – August 3, 1913) was an American inventor who invented the first successful hand-powered dishwasher, which she designed and then constructed with the assistance of mechanic George Butters, who became one of her first employees.
Once her patent issued on 28 December 1886, she founded Garis-Cochrane Manufacturing Company to manufacture her machines. Cochrane showed her new machine at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 where nine Garis-Cochran washers were installed in the restaurants and pavilions of the fair and was met with interest from restaurants and hotels, where hot water access was not an issue. She won the prize for; “best mechanical construction, durability and adaptation to its line of work” at the Fair. Garis-Cochran Manufacturing Company, which built dishwashers, grew through a focus on hotels and other commercial customers and was renamed as Cochran’s Crescent Washing Machine Company in 1897.
