Thank them: who invented the dishwasher, the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner

The dishwasher was invented by a woman named Josephine Garys Cochrane. Josephine was born in Ohio and a passion for technical creativity was instilled in her from childhood: her father worked as an engineer and her grandfather held a patent for a steamboat. The woman was prompted to design a dishwasher suitable for domestic use by an urgent need: her husband became a politician, social events took place in the house, and servants constantly damaged the family dishes on which guests were served. Poor Josephine!

The hand-operated machine made its debut in 1893 at an industrial exposition in Chicago. Cochrane quickly improved the model so that it could run on steam and electricity.

In 1924, on the basis of the Joséphine dishwasher, the Englishman William Leavens created a practical machine, structurally practically identical to those that are in our kitchens today. This coincided with the establishment of centralized water supplies in cities. However, the car remained an expensive pleasure – it was mass-produced only in the 70s of the last century. Today, few people remember, but dishwashers were also produced in the USSR: in the republics of Latvia and Belarus. Many people dreamed of them, but only high-ranking officials could afford them.

But a vacuum cleaner was not a curiosity in the USSR: already in the 1900s, these devices (noisy, heavy and with a very futuristic design) were present in many homes. A vacuum cleaner was considered a very necessary thing, not only because it made it possible to clean the rugs and carpets that covered the floors of all Soviet houses. Many models were equipped with an adapter for spraying whitewash, which greatly simplified the repair process.

We must thank Hubert Booth for this invention: at the beginning of the 20th century, an American, who drew attention to the machine with which station employees blew dust from train seats, decided to create a similar device that sucked dust. It was the start of a business empire: Booth designed a huge “Snorting Billy” vacuum cleaner with an oil motor and 100-foot hoses. “Billy” “drove” in a horse-drawn cart.

They brought the vacuum cleaner to the house, ran the hoses through the windows and started cleaning. Booth’s clients included the British royal family and all aristocratic houses. And the British Admiralty thanked the inventor for fighting the plague epidemic by vacuuming centuries-old dust from sailors’ barracks.

Over the next few years, the vacuum cleaner’s design improved and became more complex, and today “Snorting Billy’s” grandchildren crawl around rooms and pick up trash themselves!

An affordable and reliable washing machine was perhaps the first device to alleviate the oppression of domestic slavery. For many centuries, washing was a monstrously laborious and even dangerous task – so much so that putting on clean clothes became a celebration in itself.

Since the 18th century, various attempts have been made to simplify washing and improve its quality. Among them were some completely absurd ones: what else should you call a device that required eight mules to operate?

We will thank Alva Fischer – it was this man who in 1919 patented an electric washing machine, which became the prototype of all our modern washing machines. This device, called “Thor” (because of the terrible roar – all parts were open), surpassed all previous ones in performance. The wooden drum in the body rotated eight times in one direction and eight times in the other direction, removing dirt and stains.

A fully automatic washing machine appeared at the end of the 1940s: it was launched on the market simultaneously by two American companies. In the USSR, the first domestically produced assault rifles rolled off the assembly lines in 1975, it was the Volga-10 machine. This was considered a shortage and many housewives, until the 2000s of the 21st century, washed clothes in semi-automatic and activator machines – or even by hand.