Josephine Cochrane
Biography
Josephine Garis Cochrane was born in Ohio in 1839 and is known for inventing the first commercially successful automatic dishwasher. After designing it in her shed, she went on to get a patent and founded Garis-Cochrane Manufacturing Company.
She moved to Illinois and got married in 1858, and around 1870 she began designing an alternative to handwashing dishes. She hired George Butters, a mechanic, to help her build a prototype, which was the first to use pressurized water instead of scrubbers. She received a patent in 1886 and founded Garis-Cochran Manufacturing to manufacture them. In 1893 she showed her machine at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago where restaurants and hotels showed great interest.
Cochrane died of a stroke in 1913, but her company was formed into KitchenAid, and in 1949, the first dishwasher based on her design became commercially available.
Further Reading
https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/josephine-cochrane
