Women Inventors: 8 Game-Changing Home Innovations

The Dishwasher

Inventor: Josephine Cochrane

“If nobody else is going to invent a dish washing machine, I’ll do it myself.”

Josephine Cochrane reportedly spoke those words in 1886. At the end of that year, she received a patent for the world’s first practical dishwasher. While several other inventors offered earlier dishwashing designs, Cochrane’s dishwasher was the first to clean with water pressure instead of scrubbers.