A New Servant In the House

We have acquired a new servant for our household. The previous servant had gotten older and was not able to do the job any longer, so she had to retire. The new help is only good at one thing however, and that is doing the dishes. Her initials are LG and she is a nice stainless-steel model that is sleek and sometimes hot. Thus far she is doing her job well, while saving our family several hours a week that can be put to other uses.

While the first mechanical hand cranked dishwasher was registered in 1850 in the US by Joel Houghton, it was slow and unreliable. By 1886, Josephine Cochrane together with George Butters developed a much more successful model in Cochrane’s tool shed in Shelbyville, IL. She was frustrated at the way her servants handled her good china thereby inspiring her improved design. Her invention was unveiled at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. In 1924 William Livens invented a small, non-electric model that had most of today’s features including a front door, wire rack and rotating sprayer. In the 1950’s and 60’s electric stand-alone models began entering the wealthier homes and by the 1970’s, dishwashers had become commonplace.

With the standardization of cabinet heights and wall to wall countertops the dishwashers we see today took the country by storm. By 2012, over 75% of homes in the United States had dishwashers. These machines now offer energy saving features and enhanced performance, making them a valuable asset to American households.

While dishwashers have been known to perform other functions such as cooking foods at low temperatures, cleaning potatoes, washing ball caps, and scrubbing sporting goods, ours has the sole duty of dishwashing. With our larger family, it is put to use once or twice daily keeping it fairly occupied with its main function.

The family is overjoyed at how well the appliance is working thus far, as the dishes are coming out bright, shiny, and clean. The new servant is happily doing the job it was designed to do and everyone is joyful and thankful for those inventors long ago who made today’s efficient dishwashers available.

~Mark