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"I'll do it myself" - How Josephine Cochran defied social norms and invented the modern dishwasher.
USPTO Office of the Chief Communications Officer ^ | Jocelyn Ram and Eric Atkisson

Posted on 09/27/2019 9:33:24 AM PDT by Jagermonster

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For all you innovators out there.

Nifty pictures at the link.
1 posted on 09/27/2019 9:33:24 AM PDT by Jagermonster
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To: Jagermonster

>> Josephine Cochran set out to invent a better dishwashing machine. Widowed early in this effort, <<

Umm... What happened???


2 posted on 09/27/2019 9:36:13 AM PDT by dangus
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To: Jagermonster

Hand-washing is still the best. You still have to rinse the dishes beforehand and put them in the machine. Might as just wash the damn things yourself.


3 posted on 09/27/2019 9:39:40 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
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To: Jagermonster

4 posted on 09/27/2019 9:39:56 AM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change with out notice.)
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To: dangus

Makes it sound like she put him in one of her early efforts only to find out it wasn’t gentle enough.

I’m not worthy enough so have to handwash dishes.


5 posted on 09/27/2019 9:39:56 AM PDT by bgill
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To: Jagermonster

My grandmother (born 1903) called them “electric sinks”.


6 posted on 09/27/2019 9:40:48 AM PDT by dainbramaged (If you want a friend, rescue a pit bull.)
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To: Jagermonster

7 posted on 09/27/2019 9:43:41 AM PDT by null and void (<---powered by the sunshine of your love)
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To: dangus

According to the excerpt at the top of this thread, alcoholism.


8 posted on 09/27/2019 9:44:33 AM PDT by null and void (<---powered by the sunshine of your love)
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To: Jagermonster
But opportunities to innovate were rare for 19th century American women who still lacked even the right to vote ....

Now that they have the right to vote they can legislative wonderful things into existence.

9 posted on 09/27/2019 9:45:21 AM PDT by Mr Ramsbotham ("God is a spirit, and man His means of walking on the earth.")
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To: null and void

I was going to complain that you hadn’t gotten my joke about the way the context made it seem as if his death was related to her efforts to invent a dishwasher, but the notion that his death was related to an early attempt AND alcoholism is pretty funny, too.


10 posted on 09/27/2019 9:47:14 AM PDT by dangus
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To: Jagermonster

If she were a man, inventing the dishwasher and building a business would have been a piece of cake.

Damned patriarchy.


11 posted on 09/27/2019 9:48:09 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler (This Space For Rant)
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To: Jagermonster
Image result for Josephine Cochran
Josephine Cochrane

Josephine Garis Cochran was the inventor of the first commercially successful automatic dishwasher, which she constructed together with mechanic George Butters

12 posted on 09/27/2019 9:48:12 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: dangus

Well, the early prototypes were so large that they could only be sold to major hotels for a reason. One must wonder if Mr. Cochran was a big guy...


13 posted on 09/27/2019 9:50:40 AM PDT by null and void (<---powered by the sunshine of your love)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist
Hand-washing is still the best. You still have to rinse the dishes beforehand and put them in the machine. Might as just wash the damn things yourself.

Not in the Sixties. I remember GE's original "Potscrubber" machine.

It could take a dried up, baked on Corning casserole dish and came out sparkling.

We have "environmentally" crippled them into becoming what you have observed.

14 posted on 09/27/2019 9:52:30 AM PDT by eddie willers
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Damn she was good-looking!!!

(Expressing the thoughts of every man on this thread).


15 posted on 09/27/2019 9:57:14 AM PDT by Simon Foxx
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To: Jagermonster

The design (for institutional use) is still the same . Smart driven Lady...good for her.


16 posted on 09/27/2019 10:01:10 AM PDT by mythenjoseph
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To: Jagermonster

I really don’t get dishwashers. It takes more time loading and unloading them that is does to just wash the dishes by hand.


17 posted on 09/27/2019 10:04:32 AM PDT by rexthecat
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To: Jagermonster
she struggled against society’s limits on women, working tirelessly to build a successful prototype, sell her invention, and ultimately turn a tedious task into an iconic American appliance.

. . . As opposed to the walk in the park it always has been for male inventors. It's true she had the surprise factor working against her. But on the other hand, since her forebears and her husband had been inventors and successful businessmen (at least at times), she had an understanding of the process, plus a social network that some poor kid like Thomas Alva Edison, who came from nothing, would have envied.

Kudos to her. Using water pressure instead of mechanical scrubbing action was brilliant and critical to the lasting value of the invention. It was also something only someone who had lived in a rich man's house would have thought of--since only the rich had water pressure at all. The authors might have spared us the sob story.

Our American invention output has not been improved by the fat hand of today's government equality nazis--who squeeze corporations to use an expected quota of female- and minority-run supplier companies instead of merely the ones management thinks will do the best job for the price.

18 posted on 09/27/2019 10:08:57 AM PDT by SamuraiScot (am)
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To: dangus

Husband died..................


19 posted on 09/27/2019 10:11:47 AM PDT by Red Badger (Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain...................)
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To: Jeff Chandler

How many men over the centuries have said “Geez. Nobody will help me. I’ll do it myself” and just went ahead and did it?

But hey, she was a woman, it fits some narrative somewhere that nobody would help her because she was a woman.


20 posted on 09/27/2019 10:29:40 AM PDT by rlmorel (Trump to China: This Capitalist Will Not Sell You the Rope with Which You Will Hang Us.)
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