Given that we're called "The Spark," you can guess we're interested in all things electrical. Imagine our delight, then, in discovering that August 6 marks the 117th anniversary of the first execution by electric chair.
In 1886, prompted by a botched hanging, New York State began to search for a "more humane" method of execution.
Up to the plate stepped Thomas Edison, who saw he could kill two birds (and one prisoner) with one stone. Not only could he invent something new, but he could also prove that his system of direct current was safer for commercial use than the alternating current he would use for the chair.
After experimenting on animals, Edison's invention was accepted, and William Kemmler was its beta tester. Unfortunately, there were still a few glitches, because Edison's chair set Kemmler on fire.
After the bugs were ironed out, 26 states eventually adopted electrocution as an execution method. The most notorious electric chair may have been Florida's "Old Sparky," which was so unreliable that the state switched to lethal injection.
Call us
old-fashioned, but "Old Squirty"
just doesn't have the same ring.
Suggested Sites...
- Death, Money, and the History of the Electric Chair - all about the search for a more efficient and humane way of death.
- Thomas Edison's Patents - 1,093 inventions -- and one electric chair.
- Wikipedia: Electric Chair - from William Kemmler to Lynda Lyon Block, a history of shocking endings.
- Kemmler's Death by Torture - eyewitness newspaper account from 1890.
- The Fred A. Leuchter
Associates, Inc. Modular Electrocution System - instruction manual, in case you ever find the
need
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