People Who Made Headlines and Faded Into Obscurity

Archive for the ‘Inventions’ Category

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JOSEPHINE COCHRANE (1839-1913) Invented the Dishwasher

In American History, Biography, Entrepreneurs, Feminists, Inventions, Millionaires, People, Trivia, Victorian Women, women on April 20, 2010 at 9:03 AM

Josephine Cochrane

Josephine Cochrane believed that if you want something done right you better do it yourself.  But when it came time to doing the dishes, she really didn’t want to, so she invented a machine to wash them for her.

Cochrane’s early childhood is not known.  After her mother died and her sister moved out, she lived with her father, John Garis, in Ohio and Indiana.   He worked as a supervisor in mills and as a hydraulic engineer, perhaps instilling in Cochrane an instinctive knack for the mechanical.  She attended a private high school, but when it burned down, Garis sent his daughter off to live with her sister in Shelbyville, Illinois. 

After high school graduation, Cochrane’s life took a traditional turn.  At age 19 she married 27 year old William Cochran.  In 1857, after a disappointing four years trying to strike it rich in the California Gold Rush, he returned home to Shelbyville and made his mark and fortune in the dry goods business along with other investment opportunities.  No doubt the comfortable life he could offer his bride was one thing she was attracted to. 

In spite of her young age and the societal norm at the time, Cochrane was guided by her independent nature and personal confidence.  She assumed her husband’s name but preferred spelling it with an “e” on the end, a point of contention with his family. 

The Cochrans had a busy social life, and in 1870 when they moved into what could be considered a mansion, they had the perfect house for entertaining.  They threw dinner parties using heirloom china allegedly dating from the 1600s.  After one event, the servants did the washing up and carelessly chipped some of the dishes.  Cochrane discovered this the next morning while she was putting the dishes away.  She was furious and refused to let the servants handled the china any more. 

She may have regretted her decision, but she didn’t give in.  The morning after every subsequent dinner party she begrudgingly endured dishpan hands wondering why someone hadn’t invented a machine that could clean dirty dishes.  This was, after all, the late 19th century, and if someone could invent a machine to sew clothes and cut grass, then how hard could it be? 1 

One such morning while she was up to her elbows in soap suds, she had an epiphany.  Why not invent a dish washing machine herself?  Consumed with the idea, she immediately went into the library to think it through, forgetting she was holding a cup in her hand.  Within half an hour Cochrane had the basic concept for the first mechanical dishwasher.  Just like she had been doing by hand, it held the dishes securely (in a rack) while the pressure of spraying water cleaned them off.

William Cochran was a rising star in the Democratic Party, but too much alcohol led to a violent temper and illness.  While Cochrane was busy with the details of her invention, William went away for a rest. Unfortunately, he didn’t get well, and he died two weeks later in 1883.  

While the Cochrans appeared to be successful socialites to their friends, all was not well at home.  Her husband left Cochrane with a mound of debt and only $1,535.59.  Now, developing the dishwasher was not only for convenience, it was for survival.

Her creation had wire compartments for plates, cups and saucers.  They were put inside a wheel that lay flat inside a copper boiler.  A motor turned the wheel pumping hot soapy water from the bottom of the boiler over the dishes.  Cochrane showed her design to a few men for their input which ended up being a frustrating experience.  “I couldn’t get men to do the things I wanted in my way until they had tried and failed in their own,” she said.  “And that was costly for me. They knew I knew nothing, academically, about mechanics, and they insisted on having their own way with my invention until they convinced themselves my way was the better, no matter how I had arrived at it.” 2   Finally she got help with the construction from mechanic George Butters and received her first patent on the Garis-Cochran Dish-Washing Machine December 28, 1886. 

Cochrane’s first customers were not the housewives she thought she was helping. They didn’t want to spend the money on something they didn’t really need, so she turned to hotels.  After selling a dishwashing machine to the Palmer House hotel in Chicago, she had one recommendation.  Then she did one of the hardest things she’d ever done: she made a cold call to the Sherman House hotel in Chicago, waiting in the ladies’ parlor to speak with the manager.  “You asked me what was the hardest part of getting into business,” she once told a reporter. “…I think, crossing the great lobby of the Sherman House alone. You cannot imagine what it was like in those days … for a woman to cross a hotel lobby alone. I had never been anywhere without my husband or father —the lobby seemed a mile wide. I thought I should faint at every step, but I didn’t—and I got an $800 order as my reward.”2

In 1893 Cochrane convinced restaurants at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago to use her invention, and it was an exhibit in Machinery Hall.  That success led to her opening her own factory in an abandoned schoolhouse.  Her customers extended to hospitals and colleges for whom the sanitizing effects of the hot water rinse were important.  Homemakers finally started using it, too.

In 1912, at 73 years old, Cochran was still personally selling her machines.  She died in 1913.  In 1916, her company was bought out by Hobart which became KitchenAid and is now Whirlpool Corporation.  Cochrane is considered the founder.

 QUESTION:  Which modern convenience do you think it would be impossible to live without?

                       ©2010 Debbie Foulkes All Rights Reserved

 Sources:

 1 http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/1800a.shtml

 2http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/1999/2/1999_2_54.shtml

  http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/256.html

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EUGEN SANDOW (1867-1925) First Bodybuilder and Perfect Physical Specimen

In Biography, Bodybuilders, Bodybuilding, Entrepreneurs, Exercise, History, Inventions, People, People from Germany, Uncategorized, Vaudeville Acts, Victorian Women on March 15, 2010 at 9:15 PM

Eugen Sandow

Eugen Sandow had a body that men envied and women drooled over, and it brought him fame and fortune.  The only person who didn’t appreciate his success was his wife. 

Sandow was born Friedrich Muller, the son of a green grocer in a German city in East Prussia.  He was a draft dodger and changed his name to Eugen Sandow to avoid conscription.  His family didn’t appreciate that.  When his parents said, “What are you going to do, join the circus?” Sandow said yes, and ran away with one that was passing through town.  

He toured and performed as an acrobat until the circus went bankrupt in Brussels.  In this city he met Louis Attila who helped Sandow develop his physical structure and showmanship.  Together they made ends meet showing off their strength in music halls.  In 1889 Attila moved to London and sent word to Sandow of an irresistible challenge.  

The popular duo Sampson and Cyclops were posing as strongmen on stage with a cleverly choreographed act that concealed their lack of strength.  Each night Sampson issued a challenge to the audience: he would pay 500 pounds to anyone who could match the stunts he performed on stage.  Sandow was intrigued, so he went to London and briefly resumed training under Attila.  One night he answered Sampson’s call to prove his physical prowess and handily won the prize. 

This turned Sandow into a sensation, and he spent the next four years touring the music halls of Britain, wowing audiences with his feats of strength.   In 1893 he followed fame and fortune to New York where his act was under appreciated, perhaps because he had to share the stage with some third rate burlesque talent.  

This was not the American dream he was promised until one patron noticed how the women in the audience responded to Sandow’s flexing and posing.  Florenz Ziegfeld took him under his wing and coached Sandow to play to the audiences’ fascination with his bulging muscles.  He downplayed the heavy lifting for these “muscle display performances” and added some sensationalism such as breaking a chain around his neck.  Ziegfeld used the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago to debut Sandow’s new routine.  The audiences went wild, and for the next three years, Ziegfeld and Sandow toured extensively.  They continually added new ways to demonstrate Sandow’s physical prowess such as fighting a lion, or tearing apart furniture. In addition, Sandow made a short film with Thomas Edison featuring his poses.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wLJtjEv-Ik)  

Sandow got the inspiration for his manly physique from Greek and Roman statues.  He measured the sculptures and crafted his body to their exact proportions, thereby creating “The Grecian Ideal” as the representation of the perfect male body.  After a thorough examination, doctor and Harvard professor Dudley Sargent pronounced Sandow ”the most perfectly developed man in the world.”  His stage performances exploited this image by featuring him standing on a rotating pedestal encased in glass.  With physical perfection came lots of female attention, and Sandow became a sex symbol, something he didn’t seem to mind at all.  

The intense schedule and demands of celebrity caused Sandow to have a nervous breakdown.  At some point on a trip to England, Sandow had married Blanche Brookes.  When he became ill, he retreated back to England and the care of his wife. 

Away from the limelight, Sandow became passionate about helping people maintain personal fitness.  He created a place for people to learn about and practice bodybuilding and exercise called Institutes of Physical Culture.  The popularity of these gyms inspired other teachers to do the same, and a fitness craze started gaining momentum.  In order to reach the masses, Sandow published a magazine and five books.  The book that gave the sport its name, Body Building or Man in the Making, was published in 1904.  In Body Building, Sandow states his intention.  “What I live to teach is the gospel of health, and the bringing of the body to the condition to which Nature intended it.”  He outlined his system for achieving maximum physical potential as well as exercises for both men and women that dealt with specific ailments such as constipation, digestion and liver problems. (http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/sandowindex.htm#lied) 

Sandow capitalized on his success by developing equipment to enhance the efficacy of the exercises.  His spring-loaded dumbbell and weighted resistance band were available through mail order, which made it possible for the general population to get in shape in the comfort of home. In Body Building, he insisted, however, that rote repetition of the exercises was not enough. He emphasized the connection between the body and the mind. “The secret of success does not lie in the construction of the apparatus, but in the proper application and use if it, and this can only be obtained through the brain.  In other words, it is not a question as to how much you exercise, but how you exercise.” 

Sandow’s entrepreneurial spirit extended beyond the gym.  He produced Sandow Cigars and Sandow Health and Strength Cocoa.  In addition, he was one of the first proponents of mandatory physical education in school.  He believed that employers should give their employees time off for daily exercise, and he developed exercises for pregnant women to ease the pain of childbirth. 

Perhaps his biggest contribution to the sport of bodybuilding came in 1901.  Sandow organized the first bodybuilding contest, called the “Great Competition,” held in Royal Albert Hall in London to a standing room only crowd.  One of the judges was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. 

Being a perfect physical specimen and sex symbol had its price. Despite his physical strength, Sandow’s emotional weakness for women did him in.  When he died, the public story was that he had a stroke, but many believed he had succumbed to syphilis.  In retaliation for his philandering, his wife insisted that he be buried in an unmarked grave. 

Sandow hasn’t faded into total obscurity, however.  He has been immortalized by a bronze statue sculpted in his image which is the prize for winning the Mr. Olympia contest. It is called The Sandow. 

QUESTION: What physical feature do other people appreciate most about you? 

                              © 2010 Debbie Foulkes All Rights Reserved 

Sources: 

http://www.eugensandow.com/story1.html 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugen_Sandow 

http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Eugen-Sandow 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g1epc/is_bio/ai_2419201071/ 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wLJtjEv-Ik 

http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/sandowindex.htm#lied 

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EADWEARD J. MUYBRIDGE (1830-1904) Inventor of the First Moving Picture

In Horses, Inventions, Motion Pictures, Movies, Photography on February 16, 2010 at 9:10 AM

Eadweard Muybridge was not always “Eadweard Muybridge.”  He was born in England as “Edward James Muggeridge,” and after several attempts at creating a satisfying moniker, he settled on the surname “Muygridge” for a while.  Not only was he dissatisfied with his name, he wanted a different life, so he immigrated to San Francisco  in his 20s  and established himself in book publishing.

He was successful until fate intervened.  In 1860, a stagecoach accident left him with a serious head injury, and he returned to England to recover.  While he made a full recovery physically, his personality become noticeably eccentric, which manifested itself in some dramatic ways. 

 While convalescing in England, Muybridge was introduced to photography which he pursued passionately.  He returned to San Francisco in the mid-1860s and re-established himself as a photographer named “Muybridge.”  He specialized in landscape and architectural subjects and gained a reputation and following for his breathtaking reproductions of Yosemite.  This led to a government contract to shoot the new Alaskan territories, and he expanded his work to other locations in the West.

 With a burgeoning career, he was able to finally settle on an identity.  He changed the spelling of his first name in the 1870s to “Eadweard” and thus branded himself as “Eadweard Muybridge.” 

 Muybridge came to the attention of Leland Sanford, former governor of California, president of the Central Pacific Railroad and horse breeder.  Sanford solicited his help in solving a popular debate among the equestrian set.  Sanford believed that at some point while a horse is trotting, all four legs are off the ground at the same time, but he didn’t know how to prove it.  Legend has it that a $25,000 bet was a motivating factor in Sanford’s urgency to getting this question resolved.  

 Muybridge was intrigued by this challenge and pursued photographic evidence of the supposition whole heartedly until he was sidetracked by an inconvenient incident in his personal life.  Muybridge’s wife was having an affair, and Muybridge assumed the son she bore belonged to a Major Harry Larkyns.   Not wanting to be the fool, Muybridge went to Larkyns’ home, confronted him with his suspicion and then shot and killed him. 

 Fortunately, Muybridge’s life was not ruined even though he was tried for murder.  Thanks to his brain injury 14 years earlier, he had a defense: insanity.  Thanks to his relationship with Sanford, he had the money for a good lawyer.  Even though many friends testified to Muybridge’s mental instability, the jury didn’t buy it and dismissed the insanity plea.   Muybridge was acquitted, however, as the jury ruled his behavior as “justifiable homicide.” What good news for Muybridge: he wasn’t insane, and he got away with murder, literally!

 After the trial, Muybridge let things cool down and spent some time working in Central America before returning to his collaboration with Sanford.  In 1877, Muybridge took a single photograph that proved that horses do indeed, briefly have all four legs off the ground while galloping.  As luck would have it, however, that negative was lost.   

 Sanford was a determined man, and he insisted on more definitive evidence.  Muybridge once again rose to the challenge.  He set up a series of cameras along the side of the track to cover the total distance of a horse’s stride.  Each camera had a trip wire attached to the shutter that was triggered by the horse’s hooves.

 The series of photographs was called The Horse in Motion and successfully proved that Sanford’s hunch was right.  (Click on photo to see animation.) All four hooves are off the ground at the same time, but not when the legs are fully extended front and back as most illustrators had pictured.  Instead, the horse is airborne at the moment when all four legs are under the body and the weight is being shifted from the front legs to the hind legs. 

 In order to view the photos, Muybridge created a contraption called a zoopraxiscope.  A strip of the successive images was mounted on a spinning glass disc and viewed through slits.  The swift rotation of images caused them to merge in the viewer’s mind thereby giving the illusion of movement.  In 1880 after a reporter had seen a public demonstration of the zoopraxiscope, he wrote in the San Francisco Call, “Nothing was wanting but the clatter of hoofs upon the turf and an occasional breath of steam from the nostrils, to make the spectator believe that he had before him genuine flesh-and-blood steeds.”

 Muybridge’s photos were published, and he hit the lecture circuit in the US and Europe. His curiosity didn’t stop at horses, and he replicated the technique of taking successive shots to record motion and documented people and animals moving in various ways.

 Muybridge’s invention became the inspiration for Thomas Edison (who holds the patent for the motion picture camera), Philip Glass (who wrote an opera in 1982 based on Muybridge’s murder trial), the music video for the song “Lemon” by U2 (“A man makes a picture – a moving picture/Through light projected he can see himself up close“), and the slow motion bullet special effect in the movie The Matrix.

QUESTION:   What invention would you like to see developed?  How would that help your life?

                               © 2010 Debbie Foulkes  All Rights Reserved 

Sources: 

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/M/muybridge/muybridge_articles3.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/M/muybridge/muybridge_articles2.html

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726422.300-when-pioneering-photography-filled-the-theatres.html?full=true&print=true

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