The Resume

(March 8, 1839-August 14, 1913)
Born in Ashtabula County, Ohio
Birth name was Josephine Garis
Invented the first successful automatic dishwasher (Patented December 28, 1886)
Founded the Garis-Cochran Manufacturing Company (1897)
Posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2006)

Why she might be annoying:

Her married name was actually ‘Cochran,’ but she decided to add an extra ‘e.’
Her initial motive for building a mechanical dishwasher was that her servants kept chipping her good china when washing by hand.
The machine she invented was too large, too expensive, and used too much hot water to be practical for home use.

Why she might not be annoying:

She acquired a more practical reason for inventing a dishwashing machine when her alcoholic husband died, leaving behind $1500 in assets and almost twice as much in debts (1883).
She demonstrated her dishwasher at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893), where it won a prize for ‘best mechanical construction, durability and adaptation to its line of work.’
With that endorsement, she began receiving orders from restaurants, hotels, hospitals and other institutions.

Credit: C. Fishel

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• C. Fishel's Profiles [Series 66]
• I Died in 1913 (Ranked: 74)
• In Town for The World's Fair at the Columbian Exposition [1893-Chicago]
• Inventors
• Look at Me, I'm Postage
• Man's World
• Profiles 42292-42500 (Ranked: 42298)

Year In Review:

In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 11 Votes: 36.36% Annoying
In 2020, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
In 2019, Out of 7 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2017, Out of 9 Votes: 55.56% Annoying