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Josephine Garis Cochrane: American Sorceress for Domestic Life
Everyone knows necessity is the mother of innovation, and good help is hard to find. These two idioms must have combined in the mind of Josephine Garis Cochrane who needed clean dishes for the frequent dinner parties she loved to host, despite the careless servants who chipped her china when cleaning up afterwards.
Even though she was a nineteenth century woman of means who was married to a successful businessman, Cochrane was undaunted by the prospect of hard work. She became so frustrated with the incompetence she saw on display in her grand kitchen that she began to wash her own porcelain wares by hand.
Her erstwhile employees surely did not object to this change in their duties, but I can imagine Cochrane quickly transformed into a human version of Mickey Mouse in that classic cartoon The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, tiring of the drudgery of mundane domestic tasks. Unlike Mickey, however, the magic on which she called to help her would not be beyond her mastery.
Living in the Gilded Age in which the Industrial Revolution had taken hold of the American imagination, Cochrane sketched the plans for a new gadget that would use water pressure to safely remove food from plates and glasses. She eventually found an engineer named George Butters who treated her as an equal when making suggestions about how to improve on her original design, and the automatic dishwasher was born.
Unfortunately, Cochrane’s husband passed away in 1883, which resulted in new financial pressures for our clever heroine. In a bid to sustain her lifestyle and remain an independent woman, she patented and marketed her invention.
Capitalizing on the wide exposure she’d get at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Cochrane, who personally sold her own machines, initially targeted housewives as obvious customers. However, the expense of the dishwasher meant it was a more practical investment for hotels and restaurants.
A successful entrepreneur and my personal idea of what a real “feminist” was before that word was corrupted by a bunch of craziness that has nothing to do with gender equality, Josephine Garis Cochrane died in 1913. Her contribution to American life has lived well beyond her years on the planet. By the 1950s when the American middle class was truly born, Cochrane’s company had become KitchenAid, and her appliance was affordable for individual families.
While I’ll admit my mother still insists on washing her best china by hand, I am not above throwing Waterford crystal into a machine. In fact, as I tidy up after cooking, I often marvel at how much time has been collectively saved over the last century by one woman’s pragmatic vision of a labor saving device.
That is some powerfully innovative Voodoo that has helped renovate family life.
Published in Group Writing
Cheeky, @jimmycarter. Very cheeky. ;)
What a great story. I’m a huge fan of KitchenAid products. Loved reading this. :-) Thank you.
I’m a KitchenAid fan, too. We are currently in Bosch Land per appliances in place when we moved to our current home, but I’ve had to have the Bosch dishwasher here—ironically—serviced twice in the last couple of years because it has gone on too frequent strike. :)
At a friends house, I was impressed on how quiet the Bosch dishwasher was. I plan on building a new house soon, and Kitchen Aid is also on the list. Whichever brand lasts the longest and/or has low cost repair parts will be my choice. Thanks for the input.
I use Corelle ware for everything, another invention I very much appreciate. But I also put my pots and pans in the dishwasher now that I’ve found a good dishwasher and good soap to go with it. I’m very glad I have a machine dishwasher because otherwise I swear I’d only use disposable paper plates and stuff.
I’ve had two KitchenAid dishwashers (two houses). They were indestructible. That said, when we went to buy our new dishwasher, the KitchenAids were very expensive so we bought a cheaper Maytag, and we love it. Really love it. :-)
My KitchenAid mixer, which I lovingly call “my Rolls-Royce” :-), is the most impressive appliance I’ve ever had. I really really love it.
The most impressive innovation I’ve seen from KitchenAid is their self-cleaning stove. It’s more expensive than other stoves by other manufacturers, but this thing is so fantastic it will be my next one.
Backing up here: We’ve had issues with our present stove (a Kenmore), and the service guy one day told me not to run the cleaning cycle just before the holidays because it could throw the thermostat off. I’ve always wondered about that. Furthermore, anything that heats up to 800 degrees scares me. I guess I’m not the only one. The new KitchenAid model I saw doesn’t clean that way. It has a small reservoir on the door into which the owner puts plain water. The owner runs the “clean” cycle at only 200 or 300 degrees (I forget which), and it just fills up the oven box with steam and moisture. Then the owner takes a cloth with some plain dish detergent and wipes down the walls, top, door, and floor.
This is space-age technology surprisingly. It’s all about the material they’ve used to release grease for easy removal. I have a French oven from Creuset that I love. Nothing sticks to the surface. That’s because it is a glass and porcelain mixture. The bad news is that it’s heavy, and if I drop it, the surface might crack. So I’m really careful with it. But its fragility is a worthwhile risk because it browns when I want it to but nothing sticks to it. Yay!
But it’s the same material they’ve used in the new KitchenAid oven. Like microwave ovens that are so easy to wipe clean, this new oven just polishes up in minutes. I have to wipe out my traditional self-cleaning Kenmore anyway after I run the cleaning cycle. So it wouldn’t add time to my day to wash out the KitchenAid.
Their new oven is designed to not fail. It’s a simple work of art. It will be my next oven. :-)
I love KitchenAid. What a great company.
That is badass. (Can I say that on Ricochet?)
I love the whole History of Technology aspect of your post. Thanks!
Indeed. I think so too. This is a top-of-my-list purchase priority right now. I love the concept. I’ve always hated running the self-clean cycle on my oven. The fumes alone are terrible, and because I hate running it, I don’t do it often enough, making the fume situation even worse than it needs to be.
I can’t wait to buy this thing. And the interior is a cheery light blue. None of this dark cave that the other stoves are.
Please consider sharing these brands with us. As they say, YMMV.
A few years ago I saw a museum display on how an early market for automatic clothes washing machines was women who had or established clothes washing businesses. The machine provided productivity that allowed women to develop a source of income running a business that they could operate on the woman’s schedule (while the children were at school, or while the children napped, or after the household dinner was done.
A generation earlier, the sewing machine allowed women to establish themselves in business. It was hard to justify the cost of a sewing machine on the basis of making clothes for your own family. But, if you could sew clothes for other families, now you had income, and that income more than compensated for the cost of the machine.
Okay. I’m embarrassed, but what does that stand for?
My wife likes Corelle until something gets dropped on the tile. It’s like a bomb going off.
Bosch dishwasher. We lucked out and got it for cheap at a second hand appliance store. It wasn’t actually used, it was returned because a corner was damaged but it doesn’t affect the functionality of it.
For soap I use bubble bandit mixed 50/50 with Cascade professional fryer boil out. I tried making my own soap, but it’s a pain and I’m not that dedicated.
Your milage may vary.
Sorry, I debated about that. Your Mileage May Vary, based on the early EPA ratings for cars. Now it means that others may experience different results than you.
On this one, my mileage has definitely varied!!! I never had a single hiccup with a KitchenAid dishwasher, which was older than Moses, but I’m having to replace my Bosch after only a few years of use.
To be fair to Bosch, I live in a very hard water area and think that might have something to do with it.
I bought some phosphates at Lowe’s for use in the dishwasher and clothes washer, but my wife refuses to use it.
I’ve posted about how “they don’t make appliances like they use to.” So even though I’m in the market for new appliances, I’m concerned about long term reliability.
I’ve looked at the KitchenAid website, and saw blue interiors, but no mention of the steam cleaning. The MSRP for a double oven was over $3,000, which seems a bit much.
I understand the marketing of early typewriters, to middle-class businessmen’s daughters, together with the demand for able bodied men to carry rifles in WWI, helped shift “secretary” from “he” to “she.” By WWII, the Navy published this training film:
https://youtu.be/FCpZ3CP7IAs
This conversation is part of our Group Writing Series under January’s theme: Renovation. There are plenty of dates still available. Have a great home renovation story? Maybe with photos? Have a terrible home renovation story? How about furniture, or an instrument, a plane, a train or an automobile? Are you your renovation project, or someone else’s? Do you have criticism or praise for some public renovation, accomplished or desperately needed? Are you a big fan, or not so much, of home renovation shows? Unleash your inner fan or critic. We have some wonderful photo essays on Ricochet; perhaps you have a story with before and after photos, or reflections on the current state of a long project. The possibilities are endless! Why not start a conversation? Our schedule and sign-up sheet awaits.
Gosh, I just looked too. You’re right. Nothing on the company’s website matches my description.
It was two or three years ago that I saw the stove I described. I guess they don’t make the blue-interior model anymore. They still make the “aqua clean” oven, but from the reviews I’m reading, consumers are unhappy with it. I can see the problem. The owner cannot use chemicals on it so if the aqua clean cycles don’t work, the consumer is stuck with the residue. That said, my high-heat self-cleaning ovens haven’t gotten everything off either.
Oh, well. I’ll have to look at stoves again and formulate a new wish list. :-)
That’s unfortunate. It really makes a difference, especially with the dishes.
Yes, we never broke any of them until we moved into a new house with a tile kitchen. On occasion they survive a fall but mostly it’s an exciting mess with barefoot children wanting to come see what happened.
Every now and then, I pick up a common household item and marvel at the skill and ingenuity of the human race. Someone, somewhere, usually lost to history but not always, brought this tool or process into being and then countless others modified, extended and improved on it. And my life it better because of it. So Josephine Cochrane via @LoisLane, I tip my hat to you.