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If there are any good household items to improve happiness, the dishwasher can definitely attend. It can be called the terminal of differences in contemporary families, solving the cosmic problem of "who washes the dishes" in one fell swoop.

Every time you put pots and pans in, thank the person who invented the dishwasher. Wait, who invented the dishwasher?

(photo Source: giphy) this thing seems to have suddenly appeared in people's eyes in recent years, but in fact it has a history of more than 170 years.

The first patented dishwasher, invented by Joel Houghton in 1850, was a wooden box that could shake rollers of dirty dishes by hand, while manually filling water and adding detergent.

A poster promoting Horton's dishwasher (photo source: Twitter @ KuriousBlog) can imagine that this kind of dishwasher is not very convenient, it is slow and not easy to use, but it is a big improvement.

What really liberated the tired housewives at that time was Josephine Gareth Cochrane (Josephine Garis Cochrane), who was also a woman.

To mark the 100th anniversary of Josephine Cochran's death, Romania (a country that has nothing to do with her) issued a stamp with her profile picture and dishwasher in 2013 (photo: wiki) 1 Josephine was born into an invention family in Ohio and her great-grandfather invented the first patented steamship.

Josephine became a housewife and socialite after her great-grandfather John Fitch's steamboat (photo: Encyclop æ dia Britannica) married wealthy businessman William William Cochran. Especially after moving to Chicago in 1870, she often had to entertain guests at home for dinners, and washing dishes after each meal was a headache.

She uses precious porcelain to serve meals, which are family heirlooms handed down from the 17th century. But when the servant washed the dishes, she always broke these exquisite dishes. She was very distressed, so she said, "Don't move, I'll do it!"

As a result, nothing seems to have changed. After breaking a lot of dishes, Josephine found that she was not a good dishwasher, and the housework was too annoying. "if no one can build a machine that can wash these dishes quickly and safely, I will!" she thought.

Refusing to do dishes violently (photo source: see watermark) it wasn't long before Josephine developed the basic concept of a mechanical dishwasher: the dishwasher firmly fastens the dishes and flushes them through pressurized water.

The process of Josephine's invention is not easy. In 1883, her husband died of alcoholism, and although he looked good, he left only about $1500 in cash and a large amount of debt.

Josephine had to find a way to find new sources of income, which prompted her to speed up the invention of the dishwasher. She must turn her idea into reality as soon as possible, get a patent, and then find customers to sell them dishwashers.

In order to prevent the dishes in the dishwasher from moving around and keep them safe inside, Josephine carefully measured the dimensions of each bowl, plate and cup and carefully designed a wire net basket according to these sizes. there are partitions suitable for different cutlery in the basket.

(photo Source: reference [9]) one end of the metal net basket is equipped with a roller, and the whole net basket is installed in a large pot. When the motor is working, the roller will drive the net basket to rotate and spray pressurized hot water mixed with detergent from the bottom of the cauldron to thoroughly clean the dirty bowls in the net basket.

Everything was fine until Josephine encountered great obstacles when she tried to find someone to help her make the dishwasher according to the design drawings.

The mechanics at that time were all men, and Josephine seldom got recognition when she showed them her designs and asked each other for advice. They thought Josephine knew nothing about machinery and was completely unwilling to do what she wanted.

Finally, with the help of mechanic George George Butters, Josephine succeeded in making a model dishwasher and obtained the first patent for the Gareth-Cochrane dishwasher on December 28, 1886.

(photo Source: reference [9]) this is the world's first pressure spray dishwasher, and even today, it is still a very mainstream way of washing.

But the next daunting task followed: how to sell her dishwasher.

Josephine had planned to sell dishwashers to housewives to free them from their annoying dishwashing work.

But people think that washing dishes with bare hands is not so unbearable if you have to spend $75 to $100 to buy something optional for the kitchen. And some people are worried that there will be detergent residue on the cutlery, and it is not convenient to get so much hot water at that time.

It's just a little bit of a breakdown once in a while (photo: giphy) the first of Josephine's customers were hoteliers. As she walked alone through the corridors of major hotels, she described herself as "feeling like I fainted at every step". Because women of that era could not even go out to work, Josephine had never been in these places without her father or husband. After overcoming many obstacles, Josephine got an order for $800.

The Gareth-Cochrane dishwasher business is starting slowly, but because she doesn't have enough money to build her own machine, Josephine is looking for someone to set up a company to invest in her invention. She once said: "if only female shareholders could set up a company."

At the time, most investors also said they would consider the project only if Josephine resigned and handed over the company to male management.

Mrs. Mercer's story takes place in the United States in the 1950s, when it was still a male-dominated society (photo: "the Great Mrs. Mercer"-Douban). In 1893, the United States suffered a severe economic depression. the whole society was in a panic. However, it was in this year that Josephine got an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

From May to October 1893, neoclassical buildings appeared in the huge swamp clearing on the banks of Lake Michigan in Chicago, where the World Exposition was held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus's discovery of the New World.

The Mechanical Pavilion at the Chicago World Expo (photo: uspto) occupies a corner of the pavilion, where the Telegraph, phonograph and other inventions are displayed. A strange device full of more than 200 dirty dishes made people stop. After it swallowed the dirty dishes, two minutes later there was a sparkling clean plate.

The Gareth Cochrane dishwasher was the only product on display invented by a woman, and nine other dishwashers were working for the Expo restaurant.

The fair's judges were impressed by the dishwasher and awarded the invention the highest award for its "best mechanical structure, durability and applicability".

The Gareth-Cochrane dishwasher advertised that she "won the highest prize at the Expo" (photo: uspto) Josephine and her dishwasher became famous, with orders for dishwashers surging at restaurants and hotels in Illinois and nearby states, and hospitals and universities were throwing olive branches at her because dishwashers meet stringent hygiene requirements.

Josephine later opened her own factory, and dishwashers were sold to businesses in Alaska and Mexico. Since the 1900s, Josephine had to travel around to check the installation of dishwashers in hotels-who would have thought she almost fainted while walking through the hotel corridor in 1887.

Josephine's company was later acquired by Whirlpool's KitchenAid, but for the first few decades the main users were hotels and restaurants because it was too expensive as a household appliance and the development of water heaters was indeed limited.

Household dishwashers in the 1900s (photo: Hobart Corporation) after the 1950s, with technological advances and a shift in female consciousness, people were willing to spend money on their comfort and time, and sales of household dishwashers began to rise, and they are still one of the most acclaimed kitchen appliances.

By the way, March 8, 1839 is Josephine Cochran's birthday. Let's wish her a happy birthday in 184 and 5 days.

(photo source: uspto) Josephine didn't really start her career until she was 47. What are you worried about?

Cover source: wiki

Reference:

[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/this-socialite-hated-washing-dishes-so-much-that-she-invented-the-automated-dishwasher

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Cochrane#References

[3] Bellis, Mary. "Josephine Cochran and the Invention of the Dishwasher." ThoughtCo, Aug. 28, 2020

[4] http://woh.pdx.edu/heroine/2725

[5] https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/journeys-innovation/historical-stories/ill-do-it-myself

[6] https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/three-every-day-items-invented-women

[7] https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/josephine-cochrane

[8] https://forgottennewsmakers.com/2010/04/20/josephine-cochrane-1839-1913-invented-the-dishwasher/

[9] https://patents.google.com/patent/US355139

[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher

This article is from the official Wechat account: bring Science Home (ID:steamforkids), author: everything.

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