Journal: Josephine Cochrane

A great amount of the discoveries and contributions of women has been removed from the history books. Women have played a crucial role in the development of the human civilization. One of them was Josephine Cochrane, the author of famous words «if you want something done in a proper way - do it yourself». The only thing she disliked was washing dishes, so she made a machine to wash them instead of her. Josephine Cochrane should be recorded in the history of the nineteenth century as a great inventor of a dishwashing machine.

Josephine Cochrane had very interesting but hard life. After her mother’s death, she lived with her father and sisters in Indiana. She worked in the mills as a superintendent. Josephine also worked as an engineer, because the family was big and needed money. After her graduation, she married a 27 years old man, who became a well-heeled businessman and could provide his wife with comfortable life and material welfare. This couple had the perfect house for entertaining, and threw dinner parties using china porcelain utensils. After one party, the servants were washing the dishes and accidentally chipped one of them. Josephine refused to let them was the dinnerware. After the next party, she imagined a machine that could clean dishes.

Considering her previous experience, she went to the library in order to collect the information. Within half an hour, she had a model of the first dishwashing machine. She decided that it would be great to put the dishes in a rack. At the same time, the pressure of spraying water would clean that dishware. First dishwashers required a lot of hot water, and houses needed special plumbing structure to have a dishwashing machine installed. Josephine Cochrane became the developer and pioneer of the totally new commercial venture. It was hard to her not only to invent the washing machine, but also to become the promoter of the new product. She was the founder of the first dishwasher factory.

Josephine Cochrane set the stage for comfort we have today. We should give her credit for the contribution into our lives.