Welcome to the History Chicks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

Hello, and welcome to the History Chicks.

Today's episode is going to be a little different from our usual format.

Inspired by our episode on Lily and Gilbrith, who, among other things, invented the step trash can,

we thought we'd bring you the stories of four women who invented things that we use each and every day.

Chapter 1 The Dishwasher

Josephine Cochrane had a problem, or rather, three problems in the shape of her three kitchen-made.

These want and wretches insisted upon chipping up the heirloom China after every dinner party to the point that Mrs. Cochrane forbade them from touching the dishes ever again.

She would wash them herself.

So, the morning, and afternoon and evening after a fabulous event, there you'd find her among a mountain of dishes with red hands from the rough soda used to clean them,

and that same sense of remorse that most modern mothers have after they take away screen time.

What have I done? Who am I punishing exactly?

Washing dishes gives you time to think, and maybe it was all that steam coming out of her ears that gave her the idea to look around for some kind of machine to deal with this.

Wasn't there a machine for everything these days? To her surprise, there wasn't one. Well, not a good one.

And so, Mrs. Cochrane said to her empty kitchen, well, if no one's going to invent a dishwasher machine, I suppose I'll just have to do it myself.

But I've gotten ahead of myself. Let me tell you this story.

Josephine Garris was born in Ash tubuli County, Ohio on March 8, 1839, the youngest of the two daughters of John and Irene, Fitch Garris.

Inventing ran in the family, by the way, Mama's own grandfather held an important steamboat patent, and Papah himself was a civil engineer who had invented a kind of hydraulic pump.

So, Josephine inherited this sort of thing from both sides.

Papah moved the family to Valperrezo, Indiana, where he was the county land surveyor and was a man of some means.

He sent his daughters to the private Valperrezo seminary and was likely a man of some influence in this town of about 500 inhabitants.

Mama Irene died during Josephine's school years, and I'm sorry to say I can't tell you when exactly, even her headstone has no years on it.

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