Hand washing dishes is a very labor intensive job. Back before the dishwasher was invented you would have had to go fetch water from the well outside, bring it to the scullery if you had one, heat the water, add soap, scrub the dish clean, then dry it with a cloth and repeat. A scullery is a small room offset from the main house that is designed for washing dishes. Its floor is sloped so that any spilt water runs down the floor into grates set along the perimeter of the room. Because of all the water the scullery is often moist or damp which, coupled with the grease and food leftovers made it a breeding ground for bacteria. Some families got seriously sick from their scullery. Hand washing dishes was also a big problem for restaurants since they had people using dishes all the time and had to wash the dishes all the time. Josephine Cochrane was born in Ohio, 1839. She married a man named William Cochrane who had started a dry goods business. He was very successful and bought a very big house. In that house they hosted lots of large parties. Josephine used her nice china plates and bowls at these parties. She got annoyed however, when her servants chipped her fancy china when washing them. She made the first dishwasher so that the servants did not chip the china. She made some for her friends and upon receiving good feedback she showed it off in the 1893 world’s fair in Chicago and began selling it.
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