The dishwasher was patented

On December 28, 1886, Josephine Garis Cochran of Shelbyville, Illinois received U.S. Patent No. 355,139 for a “Dish Washing Machine.” Frustrated that servants kept chipping her heirloom dishes, she reportedly declared she would build a machine herself.

Earlier devices had splashed water about with little success. Cochran’s breakthrough was design discipline: she measured her plates, cups and saucers, then built individual wire compartments to hold each piece in place. The racks sat in a wheel inside a copper boiler, and a motor turned them while hot, soapy water sprayed up from below. Crucially, hers used water pressure rather than scrubbers.

She built the first dishwasher that actually worked — and could be manufactured.

Cochran founded a company to sell her machine and won an award at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Restaurants and hotels became her early customers; home kitchens would not widely adopt dishwashers until decades later. Her firm eventually became part of KitchenAid.