The first mechanical dishwashing device, according to homestratosphere.com, was registered in 1850 in the United States by Joel Houghton. This device was made of wood and was cranked by hand while water sprayed onto the dishes. This device was both slow and unreliable. Another patent granted to L.A. Alexander in 1865 was similar to the first but featured a hand-cranked rack system. Neither was practical or widely accepted.

The most successful of the hand-powered dishwashers, however, was invented in 1887 by Josephine Cochrane and mechanic George Butters in Josephine’s tool shed in Shelbyville, Illinois. Cochrane (a wealthy socialite) wanted to protect her china while it was being washed, so her inspiration was her frustration at the damage to her good china that occurred when her servants handled it during cleaning. Her invention was unveiled at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, Illinois under the name of Lavadora but was changed to Lavaplatos as another machine invented in 1858 already held that name. This machine is what everyone now knows as the washing machine.

In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, William Howard Livens invented a small, non-electric dishwasher suitable for domestic use in 1924. It was the first dishwasher that incorporated most of the design elements that are featured in the models of today. It included a front door for loading, a wire rack to hold the dirty crockery and a rotating sprayer. Drying elements were even added to his design in 1940. It was the first machine suitable for domestic use and it came at a time when permanent plumbing and running water in the house was becoming increasingly common.

Despite this, Liven’s design did not become a commercial success. Dishwashers were only successfully sold as domestic utilities in the postwar boom of the 1950s, albeit only to the wealthy. Initially, dishwashers were sold as standalone or portable devices, but with the development of the wall-to-wall countertop and standardised height cabinets, dishwashers began to be marketed with standardised sizes and shape integrated underneath the kitchen countertop as a modular unit with other kitchen appliances.

By the 1970s, dishwashers had become commonplace in domestic residences in North America and Western Europe. By 2012, over 75 per cent of homes in the United States and Germany had dishwashers.

In the late 1990s, manufacturers began offering various new energy conservation features in dishwashers. One feature was the use of "soil sensors,” a computerised tool in the dishwasher which measured food particles coming from dishes. When the dishwasher had cleaned the dishes to the point of not releasing more food particles, then the soil sensor would report the dishes being cleaned. The sensor operated with another innovation of using variable washing time. If dishes were especially dirty, then the dishwasher would run for a longer time than if the sensor detected them to be clean. In this way, the dishwasher saves energy and water by only being in operation for as long as needed.