Josephine Cochrane

Josephine Garis Cochran was an American inventor who was the inventor of the first commercially successful automatic dishwasher, which she designed in the shed behind her home, she then constructed it engaging the assistance of mechanic George Butters, who became one of her first employees. Since she found washing dishes to be very boring and mundane, she is claimed to have said "If nobody else is going to invent a dish washing machine, I'll do it myself!" Once her patent issued in 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 highest prize for "best mechanical construction, durability and adaptation to its line of work" at the Fair. Garis-Cochran Manufacturing Company, which built both hand and power operated dishwashers, grew through a focus on hotels and other commercial customers and was renamed as Cochran’s Crescent Washing Machine Company in 1897.