Josephine Garis Cochrane was a wealthy socialite from Shelbyville, Illinois, USA. She gave a lot of dinner parties and was very proud of her china, which had been in the family since the 17th century. But her servants weren't particularly careful with the priceless china when they washed them after each party. Cochrane felt that the only way to protect her treasures was to wash them herself... but she hated the job.
Why should a rich 44-year-old woman be doing this menial job? Why wasn't there a machine that could wash the dishes for her? Well, there was, sort of. The first dishwasher was patented in 1830 by Joel Houghton. It was a wooden machine that splashed water on dishes when a hand-turned wheel was rotated. It didn't work very well, so Cochrane decided to invent a better one.
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