NOTES - Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig

Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig (2005)

NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES

COMMISSION REPORT: Report of the Commission to Investigate and Report the Most Humane and Practical Method of Carrying into Effect the Sentence of Death in Capital Cases (Albany: Troy Press, 1888).

ENHS: Edison National Historic Site Archives, West Orange, New Jersey.

KEMMLER HEARINGS: People of the State of New York, ex rel. William Kemmler Against Charles F. Durston, as Warden of the State Prison at Auburn, N.Y. (Buffalo: J. D. Warren's Sons, 1889).

TAEB: Papers of Thomas A. Edison (book edition), ed. Reese V. Jenkins et al., 4 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989-). Example: TAEB 4:858 refers to volume 4, page 858.*

TAEM: Thomas A. Edison Papers: A Selective Microfilm Edition, ed. Thomas E. Jeffrey (Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1985-). Example: TAEM 138:355 refers to microfilm reel 138, frame 355.*

THOMSON PAPERS: Elihu Thomson Papers, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

PROLOGUE. EDISON ON THE WITNESS STAND

1. New York Telegraph, July 23,1889 (TAEM 146:463).

2. Testimony quotations are from Kemmler Hearings, 623, 629-30, 636. Also see New York Daily Graphic, July 23,1889; New York Sun, New York Tribune, July 24,1889.

3. London Standard, as quoted in New York Times, August 17,1890.

4. Edison to Alfred Southwick, December 19,1887 (TAEM 138:355).

5. The two most important academic articles on this topic are Thomas P. Hughes, "Harold P. Brown and the Executioner's Current: An Incident in the AC-DC Controversy," Business History Review 32 (1958): 143-65; and Terry S. Reynolds and Theodore Bernstein, "Edison and The Chair,'" IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 8 (March 1989): 19-28. Also see Terry S. Reynolds and Theodore.

6. Brooklyn Citizen, November 4,1888 (TAEM 25:580).

CHAPTER 1. EARLY SPARKS

1. J. L. Heilbron, Elements of Early Modern Physics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 160-61.

2. Quotation from ibid., 172. Also see Geoffrey V. Sutton, Science for a Polite Society: Gender, Culture, and the Demonstration of Enlightenment (Boulder, Col.: West-view Press, 1995), 290-96.

3. Sutton, Science for a Polite Society, 296-314; Heilbron, Elements of Early Modern Physics, 173-80.

4. Quotation from Heilbron, Elements of Early Modern Physics, 185. Also see Sutton, Science for a Polite Society, 314-19; Park Benjamin, The Intellectual Rise in Elec­tricity: A History (New York: Appleton, 1895), 522.

5. Quotation from Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, July 29,1750, Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W Labaree (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959-), 3:19-20. Also see I. Bernard Cohen, Benjamin Franklin's Science (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 28-29.

6. Cohen, Benjamin Franklins Science, 66-109; Heilbron, Elements of Early Modern Physics, 196-200; Sutton, Science for a Polite Society, 325-31.

7. Quotations from Franklin to Peter Collinson, February 4, 1851, Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 4:111-13; Franklin to Barbeau Dubourg and Thomas Francois Dalibard, May 1873, The Ingenious Dr. Franklin, ed. Nathan G. Goodman (Philadel­phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1931), 71-73.

8. Margaret Rowbottom and Charles Susskind, Electricity and Medicine: History of Their Interaction (San Francisco: San Francisco Press, 1984), 15-30; Samuel J. Rogal, "Electricity: John Wesley's 'Curious and Important Subject,'" Eighteenth Century Life 13 (November 1989): 79-90.

9. Marcello Pera, The Ambiguous Frog: The Galvani-Volta Controversy on Animal Electricity, trans. Jonathan Mandelbaum (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), 19-24, 53-86; Rowbottom and Susskind, Electricity and Medicine, 37-42.

10. Quoted in Joost Mertens, "Shocks and Sparks: The Voltaic Pile as a Demonstration Device," Isis 89 (1998): 303; Rowbottom and Susskind, Electricity and Medicine, 42-43.

11. Jan Golinski, Science as Public Culture: Chemistry and Enlightenment in Britain, 1760-1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 188-235.

12. W James King, "The Development of Electrical Technology in the 19th Century, Part 3: The Early Arc Light and Generator," United States National Museum Bulletin 228, paper 30 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1962), 345.

13. Paul Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory: Telegraphy and the Changing Context of American Invention, 1830-1920 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 24-51; Herbert Ohlman, "Information," in An Encyclopaedia of the History of Technology, ed. Ian McNeil (New York: Routledge, 1990), 710-17; Iwan Rhys Morus, Frankenstein s Children: Electricity, Exhibition, and Experiment in Early-Nineteenth-Century London(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), 194-230; G. R. M. Garratt, "Telegraphy," in A History of Technology, 5 vols., ed. Charles Singer et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 4:644-62.

14. Quotations from Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 675, 677. Also see Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 37-56.

15. Israel, From Machine Shop to Industrial Laboratory, 55,103-16; Ohlman, "Infor­mation," 710-17; Garratt, "Telegraphy," 644-62.

CHAPTER 2. THE INVENTOR

1. Edison's Autobiographical Notes, September 11, 1908 (TAEB 1:630); Paul Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention (New York: Wiley, 1998), 6-19; Neil Baldwin, Edison: Inventing the Century (New York: Hyperion, 1995), 28-32.

2. Quotations from Robert Conot, A Streak of Luck (New York: Seaview, 1979), 8-9. Also see Israel, Edison, 6-11.

3. Quotation from Israel, Edison, 17.

4. "Edison's Autobiographical Notes," September 11, 1908 (TAEB 1:630); Israel, Edison, 6-19; Baldwin, Edison, 28-37.

5. Quotation from TAEB 1:662-63. Also see Israel, Edison, 22.

6. Quotation from Israel, Edison, 22. Also see Conot, Streak of Luck, 27-28.

7. Quotations from Baldwin, Edison, 47; Telegrapher 5 (January 30, 1889): 183 (TAEB 1:111). Also see Israel, Edison, 20-47.

8. Edison's Autobiographical Notes, September 11, 1908 (TAEB 1:633-41); Israel, Edison, 40-55.

9. Quotation from Edison to Samuel and Nancy Edison, October 30, 1870 (TAEB 1:212).

10. Israel, Edison, 55-101.

11. Quotation from ibid., 66.

12. Quotations from Thomas P. Hughes, American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm (New York: Penguin, 1989), 28; Israel, Edison, 120.

13. TAEB 2:444.

14. Quotation from New York Sun, April 29, 1878 (TAEM 94:186). Also see "Edison's Autobiographical Notes" (TAEB 4:859, 863); Israel, Edison, 130-46; Matthew Josephson, Edison (NewYork: McGraw-Hill, 1959), 165-74; Conot, Streak of Luck, 108-9.

15. Quotations from Andre Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation (Balti­more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 22; New York Daily Graphic, April 10, 1878 (TAEM 94:158).

16. Wyn Wachhorst, Thomas Alva Edison: An American Myth (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981), 21-22.

17. Quotation from "Edison's Autobiographical Notes," September 11, 1908 (TAEB 4:858). Also see Israel, Edison, 162-63. For a contemporaneous account of a trip into the West, see W G. Marshall, Through America; or, Nine Months in the United States (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1881), 122-35.

18. Quotation from New York Daily Graphic, April 2,1878 (TAEM 27:776). Also see "Charles Batchelor's Recollections of Edison" (TAEB 4:866-67); Israel, Edison, 147-52.

CHAPTER 3. LIGHT

1. Quotation from New York Daily Graphic, August 28, 1878 (TAEM 94:338). Also see New York Sun, August 29,1878 (TAEM 94:338); Israel, Edison, 163.

2. W Bernard Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, 1870-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 88; John A. Jakle, City Lights: Illuminating the American Night(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 39-40; King, "Development of Electrical Technology," 344-407; C. Mackechniejarvis, "The Generation of Electricity," in A History of Technology, 5:179-83; Brian Bowers, "Electricity," in An Encyclopaedia of the History of Technology, 354-87.

3. Quotation from New York Mail, September 10,1878 (TAEM 94:349).

4. Robert Friedel and Paul Israel, Edison 's Electric Light: Biography of an Invention (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1986), 7; Jakle, City Lights, 35-36, 52.

5. Quotation from New York Sun, October 20,1878 (TAEM 94:382).

6. Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 7-8.

7. Quotation from Edison to William Wallace, September 13, 1878 (TAEM 17:925). Also see Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 8-13; Israel, Edison, 169-70.

8. New York Sun, September 16,1878 (TAEB 4:503-6).

9. Edison to Theodore Puskas, October 5, 1878 (TAEM 28:828); Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electiic Light, 22-23; Jean Strouse, Morgan: American Financier (New York: Random House, 1999), 181-83.

10. Israel, Edison, 171; Josephson, Edison, 187.

11. Quotation from Josephson, Edison, 163.

12. Israel, Edison, 119-21; Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 33.

13. Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 27-35; Israel, Edison, 86,145,179.

14. New York Herald, January 17,1879 (TAEM 94:450); Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 37-38; Alfred O. Tate, Edison's Open Door: The Life Story of Thomas A. Edison, a Great Individualist (New York: Dutton, 1938), 127.

15. New York Herald, January 10, 1880 (TAEM 94:562); Francis Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 3 vols. (Dearborn, Mich.: Edison Institute, 1937-41), 1:285; 2:515-16, 858; Conot, Streak of Luck, 184.

16. Quotation from New York Herald, January 10,1880 (TAEM 94:562). Also see Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 3:1145; Conot, Streak of Luck, 87.

17. Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 49-53; Israel, Edison, 180-84.

18. Quotation from Francis Upton to Elijah Wood Upton, July 6,1879 (TAEM 95:543). Also see Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 69-72; Israel, Edison, 173-76, 181-83.

19. New York Herald, March 27, 1879 (TAEM 94:464).

20. Quotations from New York Daily Graphic, February 6, April 11,1879 (TAEM 94:456, 474). Also see London Times, March 22, 1879; New York Sun, July 7, August 3, 1879 (TAEM 94:464, 494, 504).

21. "American Electric Lights," Telegraphic journal and Electrical Review, February 1,1879 (TAEM 23:528).

22. Edison to Theodore Puskas, November 13,1878 (TAEB 4:704-6).

23. Quotation from Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 75. Also see TAEB 4:717-19; Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 54-56, 116-17; Israel, Edison, 172; Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 35-37.

24. Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 78-79.

25. Quotation from New York Herald, December 21,1879 (TAEM 94:537).

26. Quotation from Menlo Park Notebook #52, N-79-7-31, p. 115 (TAEM 33:594). Also see Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 94-105; Israel, Edison, 187.

27. Quotations from Edison to George E. Gouraud, December 1, 1879 (TAEM 49:746); Israel, Edison, 187. Also see Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 103-5.

28. Quotation from Josephson, Edison, 224-25.

29. For the New Year's Eve demonstration, see New York Herald, December 31, 1879, January 1, 1880 (TAEM 94:557-59); Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 109-14; Israel, Edison, 187-88.

CHAPTER 4 ELECTRICITY AND LIFE

1. Quotation from Joseph Priestley, The History and Present State of Electricity, with Original Experiments, 4th ed. (London: C. Bathurst, 1775), 597-601. Also see Martin S. Pernick, "Back from the Grave: Recurring Controversies over Defining and Diagnosing Death in History," in Death: Beyond Whole-Brain Criteria, ed. Richard M. Zaner (Boston: Kluwer, 1988), 17-74; J a n Bondeson, Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear (New York: Norton, 2001).

2. Quotations from John [sic] Aldini, An Account of the Galvanic Experiments Performed … on the Body of a Malefactor Executed at Newgate Jan. 17, 1803 (London: Cuthell and Marin, 1803), 8-10, 37. Also see Morus, Frankenstein's Children, 127.

3. Quotations from Morus, Frankenstein's Children, 128; Authentic Confession of Jesse Strang (New York: E. M. Murden and A. Ming, 1827), 20; New York Times, September 1,1870. Also see Stuart Banner, The Death Penalty: An American History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), 173; Commission Report, 67-68; W. Mattieu Williams, "Electromania," Popular Science Monthly 21 (1882): 650-55.

4. Stanley Finger and Mark B. Law, "Karl August Weinhold and His 'Science' in the Era of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Experiments on Electricity and the Restoration of"Life," Journal of the History of Medicine 53 (1998): 161-80.

5. Quotations from Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, ed. Johanna M. Smith (Boston: Bedford, 2000), 58-60; Edgar Allan Poe, Poetry and Tales (New York: Library of America, 1984), 670. Poe's "Some Words with a Mummy" addresses similar themes.

6. Quotation from advertisement in Monthly Catalogue of the Eden Musee, February 1887, p. 10, Billy Rose Theater Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Also see David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990), 154; Morus, Frankenstein's Children, 144-45, 234-54; Rowbottom and Susskind, Electricity and Medicine, 59-66,113; M. Allen Starr, "Electricity in Relation to the Human Body," Scribner's Magazine 6 (November 1889): 589-99; Bonnie Ellen Blustein, Preserve Your Love for Science: Life of William A. Hammond, American Neurologist (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 127-33.

7. Quotation from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Medical Essays, 1842-1882 (Cam­bridge: Riverside Press, 1893), 2 7. Quotation from Oliver Wendell Holmes, 03. Also see Charles Rosenberg, "The Therapeutic Revolution," in Explaining Epidemics and Other Studies in The History of Disease (Cam­bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 9-31.

8. Quotations from George M. Beard and A. D. Rockwell, A Practical Treatise on the Medical and Surgical Uses of Electricity, 6th ed. (New York: William Wood, 1888), 217, 222. Also see Rowbottom and Susskind, Electricity and Medicine, 113-14; Lisa Rosner, "The Professional Context of Electrotherapeutics," Journal of the History of Medicine 43 (1988): 64-82; Rowbottom and Susskind, Electricity and Medicine, 103-14.

9. George Beard, "Neurasthenia, or Nervous Exhaustion," Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 80 (1869): 217-21; Charles Rosenberg, "George M. Beard and American Nervousness," in No Other Gods: On Science and American Social Thought (Balti­more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976).

10. Quotation from TAEB 2:204-9. On Beard's relationship with Edison, see Jarvis Edson to Edison, October 26, 1874 (TAEM 27:466); Israel, Edison, 110-15; TAEB 2:321, 734-33. On the induction coil, see Robert C. Post, "Stray Sparks from the Induction Coil: The Volta Prize and the Page Patent," Proceedings of the IEEE 64 (1976): 1279-86; Israel, Edison, 100. Inspired by his success in the medical market, Edison concocted "Edison's Polyform," a patent medicine for "neurologic pains" that contained morphine, alcohol, chloroform, ether, peppermint, and cloves. The inventor sold the name and formula for $5,000 to three promoters, who marketed Edison's Polyform well into the twentieth century. See TAEB 4:228-29; New York Herald, December 21,1879 (TAEM 94:541-42); David Nye, The Invented Self: An Anti-biography, from Documents of Thomas A. Edison (Odense, Denmark: Odense University Press, 1983), 139-45.

11. Quotations from "Edisons Inductorum [sic]," draft essay, c. May 20, 1874 (TAEB 2:206); Israel, Edison, 22; TAEB 2:199.

12. Quotations from W Mattieu Williams, "Electromania," Popular Science Monthly 21 (1882): 651; Ward B. Snyder, Sportsmen's Goods (New York, 1875), 152, Prints Division, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Kenneth Walter Cameron, ed., The Massachusetts Lyceum During the American Renaissance: Materials for the Study of the Oral Tradition in American Letters (Hartford, Conn.: Transcendental Books, 1969), 9; New York Museum of Anatomy, undated program, Billy Rose Theater Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Also see New York Herald, December 21,1879 (TAEM 94:539); "Prof. Anderson's Grand Drawing Room Entertainment of Natural Magic et Soirees Mysterieuse," undated handbill for Winter Garden Theater, Billy Rose Theater Collection. On Barnum and dime museums, see Neil Harris, Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973).

13. Quotation from New York Sun, December 1, 1878 (TAEM 23:187). Also see Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Ohio Penitentiary... for the Fiscal Year 1893 (Columbus: Westbote, 1896), 28-29.

14. Quotations from B. C. Brodie, "Explaining the Mode in Which Death Is Produced by Lightning," London Medical Gazette 1 (1827-28): 80; Benjamin W. Richardson, "On Research with the Large Induction Coil of the Royal Polytechnic Institution, with Special Reference to the Cause and Phenomena of Death by Lightning," Medical Times and Gazette 1 (1869): 511-12, 595-99; 2 (1869): 183-86, 373-76; W Bathurst Woodman and Charles Tidy, A Handy-book of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology (London: J. & A. Churchill, 1877), 969-70.

15. New York Herald, November 26, 30, December 14,1879.

CHAPTER 5. "DOWN TO THE LAST PENNY"

1. Quotations from Saturday Review, January 10, 1880, as quoted in Journal of Gas Lighting, January 20,1880 (TAEM 94:573); Puck, as quoted in Telegraphic Journal and Electrical Review, July 15, 1880 (TAEM 23:432). Also see unidentified clipping (TAEM 26:358); Telegraphic Journal, April 15,1880 (TAEM 24:25)

2. New York Sun, September 16, 1878 (TAEM 94:354); Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 177-78; Jakle, City Lights, 19-37.

3. Quotation from New York Daily Tribune, November 26, 1880 (TAEM 89:18). Also see St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 1,1882 (TAEM 95:191).

4. Quotation from Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 198. Harold C. Passer, The Electrical Manufacturers, 1873-1900: A Study in Competition Entrepreneurship, Technical Change, and Economic Growth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953), 177-79; Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin, Edison: His Life and Inventions, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1910), 2:910-17.

5. New York Times, August 9, 1880; New York Truth, March 6, 1881 (TAEM 94:609, 629); Harper's Weekly 26 (June 24, 1882), 394; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 2:895-96; Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 120-23.

6. Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 2: 558-63; Francis Upton to Elijah Wood Upton, May 9, 1880 (TAEM), 95:606; Scientific American 42 (May 22, 1880), 326; Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 140-44; Conot, Streak of Luck, 170-71.

7. Quotations from John R. Segredor to Edison, October 8, 14, 1880 (TAEM 53:816, 893); Vesey Butler to Edison, October 27, 1880 (TAEM 53:912). Also see Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 129-32, 154-56; Israel, Edison 196-97; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 2:338, 563, 614.

8. Quotation from Francis Upton to Elijah Wood Upton, March 2,1879 (TAEM 95:512). Also see Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 146; David Trumbull Marshall, Recollections of Edison (Boston: Christopher Publishing, 1931), 38; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 2:497, 852-54.

9. Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 2:516-17, 607.

10. New York Evening Post, December 21, 1880; New York. Herald, November 18, 1880 (TAEM 94:617, 24).

11. Quotations from Illustrated Scientific News, December 21,1880; Hartford Daily Times, undated clipping, c. December 10,1880 (TAEM 89:14; 94:621).

12. Quotations from unidentified clipping, November 26, 1880; New York Herald, November 18,1880 (TAEM 94:617, 620).

13. Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 178-80; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 2:721-24; Conot, Streak of Luck, 176-78; Marshall, Recollections of Edison, 29-30; Edison to Grosvenor Lowreyjuly 20, 1880 (TAEM 54:65).

14. The account of the aldermen's visit is derived from the following New York newspapers for December 21, 1880: Truth, Herald, Evening Post, World, Sun, Times, and Daily Tribune.

15. Quotation from New York Star, December 21,1880 (TAEM 94:623). Also see New York Post, December 21,1880 (TAEM 94:624); Charles Brush, "The Arc-Light," Century Magazine 70 (1905): 110-18; Mel Gorman, "Charles F. Brush and the First Public Electric Street Lighting System in America," Ohio Historical Quarterly 70 (1961): 128-44; Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 80-81; Jakle, City Lights, 38-47. On electric light spectacles, see Carolyn Marvin, When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 158-62.

16. Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 20.

17. This account of the night of July 13,1881, is drawn from Buffalo Daily Courier and Buffalo Morning Express, July 14,1881. On Buffalo in this time period, see Atlas of the City of Buffalo, New York (Philadelphia: G. M. Hopkins, 1884); Mark Goldman, High Hopes: The Rise and Decline of Buffalo, New York (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), 176-85; Brenda K. Shelton, Reformers in Search of Yesterday: Buffalo in the 1890s(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1976), 5-10.

18. This account of the night of August 7, 1881, is drawn from the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, August 8, 1881; Buffalo Morning Express, August 8, 1881; Buffalo Daily Courier, August 8, 9,1881; Buffalo Evening News, July 14 and August 8, 9,11,1881; testimony of Philip Fogerty, Wallace Harrington, and Charles Hayner in Kemmler Hearings.

19. Kemmler Hearings, 956-59; Buffalo Evening News, August 11, 1881; Buffalo Morning Express, August 9, 1881.

20. Quotation from Buffalo Morning Express, August 8, 1881.

CHAPTER 6. WIRING NEW YORK

1. Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences\ 3:924-26, 967; New York Times, March 1,1881; Dyer and Martin, Edison, 1:360-61.

2. Israel, Edison, 210-11; Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 195; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 2:503-5.

3. Quotation from New York Sun, September 16,1878 (TAEM 94:354). Also see Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 177-78; Jakle, City Lights, 19-37. F ° r a n incident of sabotage by line cutting, see Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, August 25, 1883.

4. Quotation from Dyer and Martin, Edison, 1:392-93.

5. Harper's Weekly 26 (June 24, 1882): 394; Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 196, 207; Conot, Streak of Luck, 195-96.

6. New York Times, August 9,1880; New York Truth, March 6,1881 (TAEM 94:609, 629); Harper's Weekly 26 (June 24, 1882): 394; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 2:895-96; New York Evening Post, December 1,1881 (TAEM 95:4).

7. Quotation from Dyer and Martin, 1:380; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 2:897, 3-'959, 996.

8. New York Times, March r, 1881.

9. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 1, 1882 (TAEM 95:191); Josephson, Edison, 261; Nye, Electrifying America, 32.

10. Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 2:741; Fred E. H. Schroeder, "More 'Small Things Forgotten': Domestic Electrical Plugs and Receptacles, 1881-1931," Technology and Culture 27 (1986): 529-30; Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 169-71, 201-4,219.

11. Friedel and Israel, Edison s Electric Light, 213-18; Israel, Edison, 205, 214-15; Conot, Streak of Luck, 189.

12. Quotations from Leslie Ward to Edison, January 18, 1882 (TAEM 50:698); Israel, Edison, 230,163. Also see Conot, Streak of Luck, 122,127,19.

13. New York. Times, March 9,1882.

14. See, for example, Edison Electric Light Company, Bulletin 6 (March 27,1882): 5-6; 7 (April 17,1882): 9; Morning Advertiser, January 5,10,1882 (TAEM 95:111-12).

15. On Edison Electric's warnings on high-voltage cables, see Edward Johnson's letter to New York Tribune, February 7, 1881 (TAEM 94:633); New York Truth, 13. March 6, 1881 (TAEM 94:629). On deaths from the current, see New York Evening Post, December 17, 1882, quoted in Payson Jones, A Power History of the Consolidated Edison System, 1878-1900 (New York: Consolidated Edison, 1940), 113; R. H. Jaffe, "Electropathology," Archives of Pathology 5 (1928): 838; New York Times, February 23, 1882; New York Herald, October 5, 8, 10, 1882. Arc lamp wires also caused fires: see New York. Evening Post, December 1,1881 (TAEM 95:44); Edison Electric Light Company, Bulletin 4 (Feb. 24,1882): 9.

16. Quotation from New York Morning Advertiser, April 12,1882 (TAEM 95:182). Also see New York Morning Post, April 12,1882 (TAEM 95:183); Journal of Gas Lighting, February 21, 1882 (TAEM 95:142); Edison Electric Light Company, Bulletin 7 (April 17,1882): 3-4, 7-8; 8 (April 27,1882): 11; 10 (June 5,1882): 4-5.

17. Dyer and Martin, Edison, 1:380-81.

18. Friedel and Israel, Edison's Electric Light, 219-20; Josephson, Edison, 257; Jones, Power History, 133.

19. Scientific American 47 (August 26,1882): 130.

20. New York Herald, New York Tribune, New York Sun, New York Times, September 5,1882; Jones, Power History, 157-214, 293-94.

21. New York Herald, September 5,1882 (TAEM 24:82).

22. New York. Sun, September 5,1882.

CHAPTER 7. THE HANGING RITUAL

1. Quotation from T. Commerford Martin, Forty Years of Edison Service (New York: Press of the New York Edison Company, 1922), 66. Also see New York Times, August 25,1882; Judge 2 (September 9,1882): 2,16.

2. Quotation from Edison to C. F. Pond, August 22, 1882. Also see Pond to Edison, August 17,1882 (TAEM 60:491, 81:816).

3. Quotation from Manufacturer and Builder 12 (February 1880): 39.

4. Pieter Spierenburg, The Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Peter Spierenburg, "The Body and the State: Early Modern Europe," in The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society, ed. Norval Morris and David J. Rothman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 49-77; Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison,trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage, 1979).

5. Spierenburg, "The Body and the State," 33-36.

6. Quotation from Karen Halttunen, Murder Most Foul: The Killer and the American Gothic Imagination (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 22-29.

7. This account of Strang's crime and execution draws on the following sources: Albany Argus and City Gazette and Albany Daily Advertiser, August 25,27,1827; Authentic Confession of Jesse Strang (New York: E. M. Murden and A. Ming, 1827); Confession of Jesse Strang (Albany: John B. Van Steenbergh, 1827); P. R. Hamblin, United States Criminal History: Being a True Account of the Most Horrid Murders, Piracies, HighWay Robberies, &c, Together with the Lives, Trials, Confessions and Executions of the Criminals. Compiled from the Criminal Records of the Counties (Fayetteville, N.Y.: Mason & De Puy, 1836), 258-66. Louis C. Jones, Murder at Cherry Hill: The Strang-Whipple Case, 1827 (Albany: History Cherry Hill, 1982). White hanging shrouds were common as late as the 1820s but mostly disappeared by midcentury, replaced by common black suits: see Thomas M. McDade, The Annals of Murder: A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on American Murders from Colonial Times to 1900 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961), xxxi.

8. Quotations from Albany Argus and City Gazette, August 25, 1827; "The Order for the Burial of the Dead," Book of Common Prayer, According to the Use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America(New York: Henry I. Megarey, 1818).

9. Albany Daily Advertiser, August 25,1827.

10. Quotations from ibid. On public behavior at hangings, see Banner, Death Penalty, 146-51; Philip English Mackey, Hanging in the Balance: The Anti-Capital Punishment Movement in New York State, 1776-1861 (New York: Garland, 1982), 108-11; V. A. C. Gatrell, The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770-1868 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 90-105.

11. Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper's Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1813-1837 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978), 37-61; Paul A. Gilje, The Road to Mobocracy: Popular Disorder in New York City, 1763-1834 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 173-77; 235-64.

12. Quotation from Banner, Death Penalty, 150. Also see Gatrell, Hanging Tree, 32-38.

13. Quotations from Michael Madow, "Forbidden Spectacle: Executions, the Public and the Press in Nineteenth Century New York," Buffalo Law Review 43 (1995): 500.

14. Louis P. Masur, Rites of Execution: Capital Punishment and the Transformation of American Culture, 1776-1863 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 94; John D. Bessler, Death in the Dark: Midnight Executions in America (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997), 41-46.

15. Masur, Rites of Execution, 76-84; Foucault, Discipline and Punish; David J. Rothman, Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971); David J. Rothman, "Perfecting the Prison," in Oxford History of the Prison, 111-29; Lane, Murder in America, 79-80; Banner, Death Penalty, 88-111, 231-33; Gatrell, Hanging Tree, 7, 20-21, 201-3; David D. Cooper, The Lesson of the Scaffold: The Public Execution Controversy in Victorian England (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1974), 27-33.

16. Quotation from Walt Whitman, "A Dialogue," United States Magazine and Democratic Review 17 (November 1845): 360-64. Also see Masur, Rites of Execution, 153-56; Reverend Charles Wiley, "Retributive Law and Capital Punishment," American Presbyterian Review 20 (1871): 414-31; A. Jacobi, William C. Wey, and B. F. Sherman, "Capital Punishment. Report of a Committee Appointed by the Medical Society of the State of New York at its Annual Meeting in 1891, and Presented Before the Society at the Session of 1892," Sanitarian 29 (1892): 47-57.

17. Quotations from Masur, Rites of Execution, 157; Banner, Death Penalty, 216-17; New York Herald, May 1, 1893. Also see E. S. Nadal, "The Rationale of the Opposition to Capital Punishment," North American Review 116 (1873): 138-50.

18. The Maine law stipulated that a prisoner could be executed no sooner than one year from the date of sentence, and then only by a specific order from the governor. After the law was passed, no executions took place in Maine for twenty-seven years. Philip English Mackey, "Introduction," in Mackey, ed., Voices Against Death: American Opposition to Capital Punishment, 1787-1973 (New York: Burt Franklin, 1976), xxi-xxii; David Brion Davis, "The Movement to Abolish Capital Punishment in America, 1787-1861," in From Homicide to Slavery: Studies in American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 17-40; Banner, Death Penalty, 134-55.

19. Madow, "Forbidden Spectacle," 512-15; Banner, Death Penalty, 157-60.

20. Gatrell, Hanging Tree, 51-54; Banner, Death Penalty, 44-47,171-74.

21. Madow, "Forbidden Spectacle," 530-31. For reports on bungled hangings, see New York Times, May 20, 1882; New York World, October 1, 1885; Buffalo Courier, July 11,1889.

22. Quotations from Edmund Clarence Stedman, "The Gallows in America," Putnam's Magazine 13 (February 1869): 225-35 (reprinted in Mackey, Voices Against Death, 132-40, emphasis in original); New York Times, January 17,1888. Also see Banner, Death Penalty, 220-21; Roger Lane, "Capital Punishment," in Violence in Amer­ica: An Encyclopedia, ed. Ronald Gottesman (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999), 198-203. Maine restored the death penalty in 1883, then abolished it for good in 1887. See Mackey, Voices Against Death, xxx-xxxi.

CHAPTER 8. THE DEATH PENALTY COMMISSION

1. Lawrence Stone, "Interpersonal Violence in English Society, 1300-1800," Past and Present 101 (1983): 22-33; Halttunen, Murder Most Foul, 62; James Turner, Reckoning with the Beast: Animals, Pain, and Humanity in the Victorian Mind (Balti­more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 2-3.

2. Quotations from Turner, Reckoning with the Beast, 79, 81.

3. Halttunen, Murder Most Foul, 62-65; Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1300-1800 (London: Penguin, 1983), 143-91.

4. Turner, Reckoning with the Beast, 34-35.

5. Martin S. Pernick, A Calculus of Suffering: Pain, Professionalism, and Anesthesia in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985); Turner, Reckoning with the Beast, 81-82; Halttunen, Murder Most Foul, 64-65.

6. Turner, Reckoning with the Beast, 50; Gerald Carson, Men, Beasts, and Gods: A History of Cruelty and Kindness to Animals (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972), 95-96.

7. Quotations from Turner, Reckoning with the Beast, 70,134. Also see Woman's Branch of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Annual Report (Philadelphia: M'Farland, 1870), 10.

8. Quotation from Edmund Clarence Stedman, "The Gallows in America," Putnam's Magazine 13 (February 1869): 225-35. Also see Jones, Murder at Cherry Hill, 114-15.

9. Quotation from G. W. Peck, "On the Use of Chloroform in Hanging," American Whig Review 8 (September 1848): 294. Also see Samuel Hand, "The Death Penalty," North American Review 133 (1881): 541-50; Pernick, A Calculus of Suffering, in; Masur, Kites of Execution, 20-21; Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 91; Karl Shoemaker, "The Problem of Pain in Punishment: Historical Perspectives," in Austin Sarat, ed., Pain, Death, and the Law (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 15-41.

10. Benjamin Ward Richardson, "The Painless Extinction of Life," Popular Science Monthly 26 (1884-85): 641-52; Woman's Branch of the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Annual Report (1874), p. 15, (1875), p. 12, (1878), pp. 13-4; Laurence Turnbull, The Advantages and Accidents of Artificial Anaesthesia, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, 1885), 261-62; D. D. Slade, How to Kill Animals Humanely (Boston: Massachusetts SPCA, 1879); Diane L. Beers, "A History of Animal Advocacy in America: Social Change, Gender, and Cultural Values, 1865-1975" (dissertation, Temple University, 1998), 136.

11. Quotations from John H. Packard, "The Mode of Inflicting the Death Penalty," Sanitarian 6 (August 1878): 360-63; G. M. Hammond, "On the Proper Method of Executing the Sentence of Death by Hanging," Sanitarian 10 (November 1882): 664-68. Also see "What Hanging Is Like: The Enjoyable Experience of One Who Has Tried It," New York World, November 1,1885; G. W Peck, "On the Use of Chloroform in Hanging," American Whig Review 8 (September 1848): 294; F. H. Hamilton et al., "Committee on Substitutes for Hanging," Physician and Bulletin of the Medico-Legal Society of New York 13 (1880): 200-204; Benjamin Ward Richardson, "Modes of Death in the Execution of English Criminals," Lancet 2 (1883): 1006, 1066; N. E. Brill, "An Argument Against the Hangman's Bungling," American Journal of Neurology 3 (1884): 643-63; Wooster Beach, "The Death Penalty: Proper Mode of Its Infliction," Medical Record 30 (July 24, 1886): 89-90; J. B. Thornton, "Some Further Remarks on the Death Penalty and Method of Infliction," Medical Record 30 (August 21,1886): 222-23; F. E. Maine, "A Few More Words Regarding the Death Penalty and the Mode of Infliction," Medical Record 30 (October 9, 1886): 417; Per­nick, Calculus of Suffering, in; Masur, Rites of Execution, 20-21.

12. Quotations from Edmund Clarence Stedman, "The Gallows in America," Putnam's Magazine 13 (February 1869): 225-35; Scientific American 28 (June 7,1873): 352; New York Herald, November 26, 1879. Also see Benjamin Ward Richardson, "On Research with the Large Induction Coil of the Royal Polytechnic Institution," Medical Times and Gazette 1 (1869): 595. For other early tests on animals, see B. C. Brodie, "Explaining the Mode in Which Death Is Produced by Lightning," London Medical Gazette 1 (1827-28): 79. For other early references to electrical execution, see Alonzo Calkins, "Felonious Homicide: Its Penalty, and the Execution thereof Judicially," in Papers Read Before the Medico-Legal Society of New York, 2nd series, rev. ed. (New York: W F. Vanden Houten, 1882), 273; New York Daily Tribune, February 25,1885.

13. New York Evening Post, December 17, 1882, quoted in Jones, 113; Jaffe, "Elec-tropathology," 838; New York Times, February 23, 1882; New York Herald, October 5, 8,10, 1882; Kemmler Hearings, 956-59; Buffalo Evening News, August 11,1881; Buffalo Morning Express, August 9, 1881.

14. Quotation from Alfred Southwick to Edison, December 5, 1887 (TAEM 119:321). Few details regarding Southwick's early experiments are known, but some information is available in New York World, February 7, 1888; New York Times, May 24,1890; Buffalo Express, August 7,1890; Buffalo Courier, June 12,1898; Kemmler Hearings, 370-71.

15. A. P. Southwick, "Anatomy and Physiology of Cleft Palate," Transactions of the Dental Society of the State of New York 15 (1883): 50-55. For Southwick's biography, see Men of New York, vol. 1 (Buffalo: George E. Matthews, 1898), 229-30; Louis B. Lane, Memorial and Family History of Erie County, New York (New York: Genealogical Publishing, 1906-8), 272-74; Dental Cosmos 40 (1898): 597-98; Buffalo Courier, June 12,1898; Buffalo Express, )une 29,1898; Buffalo Commercial, June 11,1898.

16. Quotations from New York Tribune, January 13,1885; Laws of New York, 1886, chap. 352. For McMillan's role, see New York Times, May 24, August 7, 1890; New York Sun, August 2, 1890; Men of New York, 1: 311-12.

17. On Gerry, see Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons), 4:227-28; New York Sun, February 18, 1927; New York Times, New York World, February 18, 1927. On the SPCC, see Stephen Murray Robertson, "Sexuality Through the Prism of Age: Modern Culture and Sexual Violence in New York City, 1880-1950" (dissertation, Rutgers University, 1998).

.18. Commission Report, 30, 48-50, 81; Kemmler Hearings, 346-52, 366.

19. See the undated clippings from the Buffalo Express and other newspapers in scrapbook, box SB: 1886.001, Buffalo and Erie County SPCA.

20. Quotations from Buffalo Morning Express, July 17, 1887; "Report of Agent" and entry for meeting held July 29, 1887, Minutes Book, pp. 107-8, box SB: 1883: 002, Buffalo and Erie County SPCA. Also see Annual Report, Buffalo Branch for Erie County of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Buffalo, 1887), 8-9; Kemmler Hearings, 973-76.

21. Commission Report, 14-47.

22. Ibid., 19.

23. Catalogue of the Eden Musee (New York, 1884), Billy Rose Theater Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Louis Leonard Tucker, "'Ohio Show-Shop': The Western Museum of Cincinnati, 1820-1867," in Cabinet of Curiosities: Five Episodes in the Evolution of American Museums (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967), 73-105; Kathleen Kendrick, '"The Things Down Stairs': Containing Horror in the Nineteenth-Century Wax Museum," NineteenthCentury Studies 12 (1998): 1-35; Halttunen, Murder Most Foul, 66, 78-82.

24. Commission Report, 81-82. During the Kemmler Hearings (p. 369), Gerry reported slightly different figures: 81 for hanging, 75 for electricity.

25. Quotation from Commission Report, 68-69.

26. Quotations from ibid., 49-50. Also see Daniel Arasse, The Guillotine and the Terror, trans. Christopher Miller (London: Allen Lane, 1989), 8-18. Quotation in footnote from New York World, December 28, 1886.

27. Kemmler Hearings, 368; Commission Report, 75.

28. Commission Report, 75-86.

29. On Southwick's advocacy of electricity and Gerry's initial reluctance, see Kemmler Hearings, 370-72; New York World, December 28, 1886; New York Times, January 24, December 17,1887; New York Herald, January 27,1888; Electrical Review 11 (December 24,1887): 7.

30. Kemmler Hearings, 372, 391, 396.

CHAPTER 9. GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE AND THE RISE OF ALTERNATING CURRENT

1. Quotations from Mary Edison to Samuel Insull, April 30, 1884 (TAEM 71:615); Robert Lozier to John Tomlinson, August 9,1884 (TAEM 71:627).

2. Quotations from Edison diary, July 12,1885 (TAEM 90:9); Israel, Edison, 233; Notebook N-80-08-09, pp. 13, 37, 218 (TAEM 38:433, 454, 459). Also see Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 2:510-11; Baldwin, Edison, 87-88, 144; Conot, Streak of Luck, 225-26.

3. Edison Electric Light Company, Bulletin 22 (April 9,1884): 22; Israel, Edison, 212-13.

4. Quotation from Josephson, Edison, 269.

5. Quotation from unidentified clipping, March 13,1883 (TAEM 66:21).

6. Quotation from ibid. Also see Israel, Edison, 224-25; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 99.

7. Israel, Edison, 226-29; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 100-101.

8. New York Sun, undated clipping (TAEM 89:667).

9. John Hopkinson had patented the same design in Britain a few months before Edison.

10. See Israel, Edison, 219; Hughes, Networks of Power, 83-84; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 99,112-23,178; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 3:1100.

11. Quotations from Electrical Review 16 (May 24, 1890): 3; New York Herald, March 16,1890; Marvin, When Old Technologies Were New, 138. Also see Strouse, Morgan, 234-35; Ward McAllister, Society as I Have Found It(New York: Cassell, 1890), 353-54; Jehl, Menlo Park Reminiscences, 3:1000.

12. Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 41-57.

13. Ibid., 21-31, 68-71.

13. Ibid., 65, 70; Joseph P. Sullivan, "From Municipal Ownership to Regula­tion: Municipal Utility Reform in New York City, 1880-1907" (dissertation, Rutgers University, 1995), 490.

15. Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 148.

16. Frank Crane, George Westinghouse: His Life and Achievements (New York: William H. Wise, 1925), 5-8; Henry G. Prout, A Life of George Westinghouse (New York: American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1921), 1-7; Curt Wohleber, "'St. George' Westinghouse," American Heritage of Invention and Technology 12 (Winter 1997): 30; Frank Wicks, "How George Westinghouse Changed the World," Mechanical Engi­neering! (October 1996): 74-79.

17. Quotation from Wohleber, "'St. George' Westinghouse," 31. Also see Prout, Life of George Westinghouse, 4, 8, 365; Crane, George Westinghouse, 8-9.

18. Quotation from Crane, George Westinghouse, 13.

19. Ibid., 13-14.

20. Steven W Usselman, "Air Brakes for Freight Trains: Technological Innovation in the American Railroad Industry, 1869-1900," Business History Review 58 (1984): 30-50; Steven W Usselman, "From Novelty to Utility: George Westinghouse and the Business of Innovation During the Age of Edison," Business History Review 66 (1992): 251-304; Prout, Life of George Westinghouse, 21-32; Crane, George Westinghouse, 3, 21-23.

21. Quotations from Francis G. Leupp, George Westinghouse: His Life and Achievements (Boston: Little, Brown, 1918), 287; Prout, Life of George Westinghouse, 3.

22. Quotation from Tate, Edison's Open Door, 150.

23. See Westinghouse to Edison, June 7, 1888 (TAEM 122:861); "The Westinghouse Electric Company's Dynamo and Incandescent Lamp," Electrical World 7 (April 3,1886): 151-52; Prout, Life of George Westinghouse, 92-95; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 131; George Wise, "William Stanley's Search for Immortality," American Heritage of Invention and Technology 4 (Spring 1988): 42-49.

24. Hughes, Networks of Power, 83; Arthur A. Bright, The Electric Lamp Industry: Technological Change and Economic Development from 1800 to 1947 (New York: Macmillan, 1949), 75-76; New York Times, December 27,1882.

25. King, "The Development of Electrical Technology," 349-50; "The Distribution of Electricity by Secondary Generators," Electrical World 9 (March 26, 1887): 156-58.

24. The Jablochkoff arc lamp used alternating current. "The Distribution of Electricity by Secondary Generators," Electrical World 9 (March 26, 1887): 156-58; Hughes, Networks of Power, 86; Jarvis, "The Generation of Electricity," 212.

27. "The Distribution of Electricity by Secondary Generators," Electrical World 9 (March 26,1887): 156-58; Hughes, Networks of Power, 87-102; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 131-32.

28. Telegraphic Journal and Electrical Review 12 (June 9,1883): 467.

29. Hughes, Networks of Power, 98-104; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 131-32.

30. Stanley to Westinghouse, March 17, 1886, reprinted in Electric Journal 8 (June 1911): 493.

31. "The Gaulard and Gibbs System of Electric Distribution," Electrical World 7 (December 4, 1886): 271-72; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 137-38; Hughes, Networks of Power, 103-4.

32. "Copper," Electrical Engineer 7 (February 1888): 42; Reynolds and Bernstein, "Damnable Alternating Current," 1340. Also see William J. Hausman and John L. Neufeld, "Battle of the Systems Revisited: The Role of Copper," IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 11 (Fall 1992): 18-25.

33. F. L. Pope, "The Westinghouse Alternating System of Electric Lighting," Electrician and Electric Lighting 6 (September 1887), 332-42; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 137-38,164-66.

34. "Notes on Distribution of Alternating Current," memo from Edison to Edward Johnson, 1886, pp. 7-10 (TAEM 148:3). Similar points appear in a longer report issued by Siemens & Halske, an Edison ally and major electrical manufacturer in Germany: "About the Use of Transformers in Electric Light Plants," November 1886 (TAEM 79:383).

35. Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 166; Israel, Edison, 325.

36. "Notes on Distribution of Alternating Current," 7.

37. Quotation from W. S. Andrews to J. H. Vail, May 12, 1887 (TAEM 119:814). Also see "The Westinghouse Alternating Current System," Electrical World 10 (September 3,1887): 125-27; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers,121,149.

38. Both agents were quoted in W. J. Jenks to J. H. Vail, November 12, 1887 (TAEM 119:849).

39. Edward Johnson to Edison, December 9,1887 (TAEM 119:857).

40. Quotations from Alfred Southwick to Edison, November 8,1887. Edison's response to Southwick's first letter does not survive, but its contents can be surmised from Alfred Southwick to Edison, December 5, 1887 (TAEM 119:321).

41. Quotation from Edison to Alfred Southwick, December 19, 1887 (TAEM 138:355).

CHAPTER 10. THE ELECTRICAL EXECUTION LAW

1. New York Times, March 22,1890.

2. Quotation from Commission Report, 94.

3. Quotations from ibid., 88, 90. Also see Elbridge Gerry, "Capital Punishment by Electricity," North American Review 149 (1889): 321-25.

4. See Ruth Richardson, Death, Dissection and the Destitute (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), 32-37, 51-53; Gatrell, Hanging Tree, 255-58; Banner, Death Penalty, 76-82. The bodies of executed criminals were also believed to possess magical healing qualities: see Mabel Peacock, "Executed Criminals and Folk-Medi­cine," Folk-Lore 7 (1896): 268-83.

5. Quotations from New York Museum of Anatomy, undated catalog, Billy Rose Theater Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; New York Herald, July 9, 1891. Also see Banner, Death Penalty, 80; Luc Sante, Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (New York: Vintage, 1992), 96-101.

6. Quotation from Commission Report, 89.

7. Quotations from Paul Avrich, The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), 217, 393, 396. Also see Additional Report of the Commissioners on Capital Punishment of the State of New York(Albany: James B. Lyon, 1892), 23.

8. Quotations from Commission Report, 88-89; New York World, March 22, 1888; New York World, June 6,1888. Also see New York Herald, January 27,1888.

9. Quotations from Additional Report of the Commissioners on Capital Punishment, 8,17.

10. Additional Report of the Commissioners on Capital Punishment. For further comments by Gerry, see New York Herald, January 27, 1888.

11. Quotation from New York Herald, April 18, 1888. Also see Laws of New York (1888), 778-81; New York World, January 18, March 22, May 11, June 5, 1888; New York Times, January 17, May 12, 1888; New York Daily Tribune, March 22, 1888; New York Herald, January 27, April 18, 26, 1888.

12. Quotations from Kemmler Hearings, 367; Elbridge Gerry, "Capital Punishment by Electricity," North American Review 149 (1889): 322; Park Benjamin, "The Infliction of the Death Penalty," Forum 3 (July 1887): 512. Also see Thomas D. Lock-wood, "Electrical Killing," Electrical Engineer 7 (March 1888): 89-90; New York Herald, January 27,1888.

13. Quotations from Scientific American 58 (June 30,1888): 407; New York Times, December 17,1887; New York Daily Tribune, June 11,1888. Also see New York Daily Tribune, December 23,1887; "Humanity in the Death Sentence,"JAMA 10 (January 28, 1888): 114-15; "Report of the Committee on Best Methods of Executing Criminals," Medico-Legal Journal 3 (1888): 442-44.

14. Quotation from Buffalo Express, June 5,1888. Also see Buffalo Express, December 24,1886.

15. George Fell, who conducted the experiments with Southwick, later admitted the shortcomings: "The report has been criticized as not covering electrical measurements. I was limited in apparatus and accomplished as much as was possible with the means at my command." George Fell, "The Influence of Electricity on Protoplasm, with Some Remarks on the Kemmler Execution," Physician and Surgeon 10 (October 1890): 441.

16. Quotation from Laws of New York (1888), 780.

17. Quotations from "The Death Penalty by Electricity," Medical Record 33 (January 21, 1888): 34; New York Herald, March 9,1888; New York Herald, June 24, 1888. Also see Medical Record 33 (February 11,1888): 158.

18. New York World, June 24,1888.

19. Israel, Edison, 244.

20. Quotations from Edison diary, July 12,1885 (TAEM 90:9).

21. Quotations from ibid., July 15,17, 20,1885 (TAEM 90:9).

22. Quotations from ibid., July 17,1885 (TAEM 90:9); Israel, Edison, 253.

23. See Larry Moore, Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 149-55.

24. Quotations from Edison diary, July 12,1885 (TAEM 90:9); Israel, Edison, 247.

25. Edison to John and Theodore Miller, December 24,1885 (TAEM 77:480).

26. The Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison, ed. Dagobert D. Runes (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968), 54-55; Israel, Edison, 247.

27. Fort Myers Notebook N-86-03-18, March 20, 1886 (TAEM 42:843); Israel, Edison, 250-51.

28. Israel, Edison, 248-49.

29. Tate, Edison's Open Door, 140.

30. Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 118-23.

31. Quotations from Edison to Wright, draft letter, c. August 1887 (TAEM 98:671-72); Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 15. Also see Horace Townsend, "Edison: His Work and His Work-Shop," Cosmopolitan Magazine (April 1889): 598-607; "Edison's New Laboratory," Scientific American 37 (September 18, 1887): 184; David Trumbull Marshall, Recollections of Edison (Boston: Christopher Publishing, 1931), 90; Reginald A. Fessenden, "The Inventions of Reginald A. Fessenden," Radio News 7 (August 1925): 156; Andre Millard, Duncan Hay, and Mary Grassick, Historic Furnishings Report. Edison Laboratory. Edison National Historic Site. West Orange, New Jersey, 2 vols. (Harpers Ferry Center: National Park Service, 1995), 1:26-28; Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 10-15; Israel, Edison, 260-66.

32. Quotations from Marshall, Recollections of Edison, 60; Edison to Wright, draft letter, c. August 1887 (TAEM 98:671-72). Also see Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 16.

33. Arthur Kennelly to Dr. Muirhead, December 26,1888 (TAEM 109:227). On Kennelly's career, see Vannevar Bush, "Biographical Memoir of Arthur Edwin Kennelly, 1861-1939," National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir 22 (1943): 83-119; C. M. Worthington, "Interview with Dr. A.E. Kennelly on May 19th, at his home," Kennelly folder, Edison Pioneers collection, ENHS; "Autobiographical Sketch of the Life and Work of Arthur Edwin Kennelly," unpublished manuscript, 1936, Harvard University Archives; Israel, Edison, 272, 305-20; Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 88-110.

34. The account of this experiment, including all quotations, is taken from the New York World, June 24,1888. For another account, see the New York Morning Sun, June 24,1888 (TAEM 146:353; misdated as November 4,1888 in TAEM). Ken­nelly mentions the events of this day in Kemmler Hearings, 748-52. This is most likely the experiment described in W K. L. Dickson and Antonia Dickson, The Life and Inventions of Thomas Alva Edison (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1894), 326-30.

CHAPTER 11. "A DESPERATE FIGHT"

1. Quotations from F. R. Chinook to Edison, April 17, 1888 (TAEM 123:612); Francis Upton to Edison, May 28,1888 (TAEM 123:36). Also see Reynolds and Bernstein, "Damnable Alternating Current," 1340.

2. Nikola Tesla, "A New System of Alternate Current Motors and Transform­ers," Electrical Engineer 7 (June 1888): 252-57; Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 249-59; Ronald Kline, "Science and Engineering Theory in the Invention and Development of the Induction Motor, 1880-1900," Technology and Culture 28 (1887): 283-313; Reynolds and Bernstein, "Damnable Alternating Current," 1341-42; Curt Wohleber, "The Work of the World," American Heritage of Invention and Technology 7 (Winter 1992): 52.

3. Quotations from A Warning from the Edison Electric Light Co. (n.p., n.d. [February 1888]). On Johnson's plans for the circular, see Johnson to Edison, December 20,1887 (TAEM 119:871).

4. Quotation from Electrician 21 (August 3, 1888): 398. The Chicago Electric Club had some of the most heated debates, reports of which appeared in the April, May, and June editions of Western Electrician 2 (1888). Also see Electrical Engineer 7 (April, May 1888): 154-55,166-68, 220-24.

5. Quotation from George Westinghouse to Edison, June 7, 1888 (TAEM 122:861).

6. Quotation from Edison to Westinghouse, June 12,1888 (TAEM 138:438).

7. On disputes over efficiency, see Westinghouse circular, July 3,1888 (TAEM 122:877). On accidental deaths, see New York Times, November 7, 1886, January 21, October 7, December 6,1887; New York Tribune, May 6,1887.

8. Quotation from C. C. Haskins, "For High Insulation," Electrician and Electrical Engineer 6 (March 1887): 93-96. Also see Gilbert Wilkes and Cary T. Hutchinson, "Tests of American Insulated Wires," Electrical World 13 (January 26, 1889); Thomas Edison, "Insulation," Electrical Engineer 14 (July 13, 1892): 34-35; Sullivan, "From Municipal Ownership to Regulation," 132-42; Joseph P. Sullivan, "Fearing Electricity: Overhead Wire Panic in New York City," IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 14 (Fall 1995): 8-16; Electrical Engineer 7 (August 1888): 330; Israel, Edison, 311-13; Marshall, Recollections of Edison, 67-6.

9. Quotation from "Overhead Wires in New York," Electrical Engineer 7 (August 1888): 330. On wire regulation in other cities, see William Thomson, "Electric Lighting and Public Safety," North American Review 149 (February 1890): 189-96; S. S. Wheeler, "Overhead and Underground Wires in New York," Telegraphic Journal and Electrical Review 23 (September 14, 1888): 291-94; New York World, January 14, 1890; George Cutter to Elihu Thomson, November 27, 1887, series II, 1887 folder, Thomson Papers; Harold L. Platt, The Electric City: Energy and the Growth of the Chicago Area, 1880-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 43-45. On efforts to regulate overhead wires, see Sullivan, "From Municipal Ownership to Regulation," 132-46; New York Advertiser, October 30,1885 (TAEM 89:652); New York Tribune, January 6, 1888; New York World, July 17, 1888; Electrical Engineer 7 (August 1888): 330; New York World, New York Tribune, August 30,1888; S. S. Wheeler, "Overhead and Underground Wires in New York," Telegraphic Journal and Electrical Review 23 (September 14, 1888): 291-94; Schuyler S. Wheeler, "Electric Lighting in New York," Harper's Weekly 33 (July 27,1889): 593-96, 601-3.

10. "Overhead Wires in New York," Electrical Engineer 7 (August 1888): 330; Sullivan, "From Municipal Ownership to Regulation," 146.

11. New York World, April 16,17, August 8,1888; New York Tribune, April 17,1888; New York Times, April 28, May 12,1888.

12. New York Morning Sun, June 24,1888 (TAEM 146:353; misdated as November 4,1888, in TAEM).

13. Kemmler Hearings, 3-6; Harold Brown to Edison, December 29, 1879 (TAEM 50:483); Harold P. Brown folder, Edison Pioneers collection, ENHS; George Bliss to Edison, May 12,1888; Edison to George Bliss, May 21,1888 (TAEM 121:332,122:313).

14. New York Evening Post, June 5, 1888; reprinted in "The Admission of Alternating Currents into New York City," Electrical World 12 (July 28,1888): 40.

15. Quotations in this and the next paragraph from "The Admission of Alternating Currents into New York City," Electrical World 12 (July 28,1888): 40-46. The same meeting transcript was also reprinted as "High Potential Systems Before the Board of Electrical Control of New York City," Electrical Engineer 7 (August 1888): 360-69.

16. This may have been an unwitting description of cardiac defibrillation, but its effectiveness in 1888 would have been entirely accidental, since the principle of defibrillation was not discovered until the middle of the twentieth century. See Theodore Bernstein, "Theories of the Causes of Death from Electricity in the Late Nineteenth Century," Medical Instrumentation 9 (1975): 267-73.

17. Quotation from New York Evening Post, June 5, 1888. On theories of the greater dangers of alternating current, see New York Times, June 5,1882; Max Deri, "Alternating Currents and Their Practical Uses," Electrician and Electrical Engineer 3 (September 1886): 346-47; Edison, "Notes on Distribution of Alternating Current," memo to Edward Johnson, 1886, 7-10 (TAEM 148:3).

18. Quotation from Harold P. Brown, The Comparative Danger to Life of the Alternating and Continuous Currents (New York: n.p., 1889), 10.

19. See Peterson's obituary, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 88 (1938): 558-61.

20. Notebook N-88-06-06, pp. 74, 78-80, July 12,15,1888 (TAEM 102:529-35).

21. Ibid., pp. 78-80, July 17,1888 (TAEM 102:540-3).

22. Alfred O. Tate to Henry Bergh, May 2, 1888 (TAEM 122:288). Bergh's letter to Edison does not survive, but its contents can be inferred from the letter from Tate, Edison's secretary, who wrote to Bergh on the inventor's behalf. Also see Kennelly's testimony in Kemmler Hearings, 748-52.

23. Edison to Henry Bergh, July 13,1888 (TAEM 138:441).

24. Henry Bergh to Edison, July 14,1888 (TAEM 122:882); Edison to Bergh, July 21,1888 (TAEM 81:195).

25. Notebook N-88-06-10, pp. 31-32, 36-37, July 21 and 24, 1888 (TAEM 102:580-81, 584-87); Marshall, Recollections of Edison, 66; Harold P. Brown, "Experiments with Electric Currents on Dogs," Electrical World 12 (August 11,1888): 72-73.

26. Quotations from New York World, July 31, 1888. Also see New York Times, August 4, 1888; "Mr. Brown's Rejoinder," Electrical Engineer 7 (August 1888): 330, 369-70; "Physiological Tests with the Electric Currents," Electrical World 12 (August 11,1888): 69-72; Notebook N-88-06-10, p. 47 (TAEM 102:596).

27. New York Times, August 4, 1888; New York Morning Sun, August 4, 1888 (TAEM 146:292).

28. Electrician 22 (August 17,1888): 478.

29. Harold Brown to Arthur Kennelly, August 4, 1888 (TAEM 122:924); Kennelly to Frank Hastings, August 8, 1888 (TAEM 109:121-22). Also see Hastings to Kennelly, August 6, 8, 1888 (TAEM 123:67-69); Kennelly to Brown, August 9, 1888 (TAEM 109:123).

CHAPTER 12. "CRIMINAL ECONOMY"

1. "Mr. Brown and the Dog—a Ballad," Electrical Engineer 7 (August 1888): 375.

2. Sullivan, "From Municipal Ownership to Regulation," 122-25, x46, 490; "The Subway Fight of the United States Company," Electrical World 13 (January 12, 1889): 21-22; "Meeting of the Board of Electrical Control," Electrical World 13 (January 26,1889): 48; "New York Board of Electrical Control," Electrical World 13 (March 9, 1889): 149-50; "Meeting of the Board of Electrical Control," Electrical World 13 (March 16,1889): 164.

3. Quotation from Electrician 21 (October 5, 1888): 691. Also see Arthur Kennelly to Electrical Review, September 7, 1888 (TAEM 109:141); Kennelly to W H. Snell, September 24,1888 (TAEM 109:174).

4. Quotations from New York World, August 19,1888; Arthur Kennelly to New York World, August 20, 1888 (TAEM 109:124); New York World, August 27, 1888 (which reprints most of Kennelly's letter). Also see P. H. Van Der Weyde, "The Comparative Danger of Alternate vs. Direct Currents," Electrical Engineer 7 (September 1888): 451-54.

5. Brooklyn Citizen, November 4,1888 (TAEM 25:580).

6. Quotations from Kennelly Notebook #2, p. 113, December 18, 1889 (TAEM 104:552); Brooklyn Citizen, November 4, 1888 (TAEM 25:580). On the relative velocities of nerve sensation and electricity, see Park Benjamin, "The Infliction of the Death Penalty," Forum 3 (July 1887): 509-10; New York Herald, April 25,1890; Kemmler Hearings, 243-46; A. D. Rockwell, Rambling Recollections: An Autobiography (New York: Paul B. Hoeber, 1920), 232. On research into the velocity of the nerve impulse, see Rowbottom and Susskind, Electricity and Medicine, 98-99.

7. Quotations from Commission Report, 77. Fell's experiment helped persuade Elbridge Gerry to support electrical execution: New York Herald, January 27, 1888. Footnote quotation from Thomas D. Lockwood, "Electrical Killing," Electrical Engineer 7 (March 1888): 89-90.

8. Quotations from Kemmler Hearings, 366; Medical Record 37 (May 17,1890). Also see Commission Report, 75. On the Medico-Legal Society, see James C. Mohr, Doctors and the Law: Medical Jurisprudence in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 219-24; Blustein, Preserve Your Love for Science, 112. For physician contributions to the search for a new killing method, see J. H. Packard, "The Mode of Inflicting the Death Penalty," Sanitarian 6 (1878): 360-63 (reprinted in Bulletin of the Medico-Legal Society of New-York 1 [1878-9]: 135-40); "Of the Death Penalty," Bulletin of the Medico-Legal Society of New-York 1 (1878-9): 141-56; G. M. Hammond, "On the Proper Method of Executing the Sentence of Death by Hanging," Sanitarian 10 (1882): 664-68; Alonzo Calkins, "Felonious Homicide: Its Penalty, and the Execution Thereof Judicially," in Papers Read Before the Medico-Legal Society of New York, 2nd series, rev. ed. (New York: W F. Vanden Houten, 1882), 254-76; "The Method of Inflicting Capital Punishment," Boston Medical and Surgical Journal no (May 29, 1884): 508; Frederick Henry Gerrish, "The Hypodermic Administration of Morphine as a Substitute for Hanging in the Execution of Criminals," Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 113 (September 17, 1885): 270-71; W Lindley, "The Methods of Capital Punishment," Southern California Practitioner 1 (1886): 73-81; J. Mount Bleyer, "Scientific Methods of Capital Punishment," Hum-boldt Library of Popular Science 9 (1887): 1-16. The American Medical Association now forbids physician participation in executions. See "Physician Participation in Capital Punishment," JAMA 270 (July 21,1993): 365-68.

9. Quotation from "A Report on Execution by Electricity," Electrical World 12 (November 24, 1888): 273-76. Also see New York World, November 15, 1888 (TAEM 146:356); "Execution by Electricity," Medical Record 34 (November 17, 24,1888): 597, 623; New York Times, March 9, 15, 1888; Clark Bell, "Electricity and the Death Penalty," Journal of the American Medical Association 12 (March 9,1889): 32 (reprinted in Medico-Legal Journal 7[1889-90]: 201-9).

10. Quotation from Arthur Kennelly to Frank Hastings, December 3, 1888 (TAEM 109:207).

11. The account of this experiment, including quotations, in this and the next two paragraphs is drawn from Kennelly Notebook #1, pp. 47-50, December 5, 1888 (misdated December 4 by Kennelly) (TAEM 104:302); Harold P. Brown, "Death-Current Experiments at the Edison Laboratory," Electrical World 12 (December 15,1888). Also see Scientific American 39 (December 22,1888): 393; New York Times, December 6, 1888; Medical Record 34 (December 8,1888): 678.

12. S. Eaton to Edison, December 12, 1888 (ENHS: D-88-22-4; emphasis in original; my thanks to Matt Abramovitz for bringing this letter to my attention); New York Tribune, February 4,1889; New York World, December 10,14,18,1888. A Jer-sey City man offered his sick spaniel to Edison in the hope that the dog might be killed "comparatively painlessly" and at the same time further "the interests of science." John C. Dewey to Edison, February 3,1889 (ENHS: D-89-33).

13. "Report of the Committee of the Medico-Legal Society on the Best Method of Execution of Criminals by Electricity," Medico-Legal Journal 6 (1888-89): 276-81; Clark Bell, "Electricity and the Death Penalty," Medico-Legal Journal 7 (1889-90): 201-19.

14. New York Daily Tribune, December 10,1888, as quoted in Brown, Comparative Danger, 27.

15. New York Evening Post, December 12,1888.

16. Ibid.

17. See W P. Hancock, "Report on Westinghouse Plant of Colorado Electric Company" (TAEM 122:996-1001); "Consolidation of Electric Light Companies," Electrical Engineer 8 (February 1889): 74-75; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 121,149.

18. Quotations from Harold Brown, "An Electrical Duel," New York Times, December 18, 1888. Also see Electrical World 12 (December 22, 1888), 323; Electrical World 13 (March 9,1889): 149.

19. Quotation from Harold Brown, circular, December 1888 (TAEM 122:193). Also see Frank Hastings to Edison, January 21, 1889 (TAEM 126:11); Alfred Tate to Hastings, January 24,1889 (TAEM 138:765); Harold Brown to Edison, February 14, March 17,1889 (TAEM 126:19, 39).

20. Quotation from Brown, Comparative Danger, iv. The third edition of this pamphlet was reprinted as Relator's Exhibit A in Kemmler Hearings.

21. For Rockwell's obituary, see Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 79 (1934): 120-22. On the arrangements for these experiments, see Charles K. Baker to Harold Brown, February 20, 1889; Frank Hastings to Arthur Kennelly, February 25, 1889; Kennelly to Hastings, February 25,1889; Brown to Kennelly, March 12,1889 (TAEM 126:32, 33, 35; 109:285).

22. Kennelly Notebook #1, pp. 90-91, March 12,1889 (TAEM 104:346); New York Times, March 9, 13, 1889; New York Star, March 18, 1889 (TAEM 146:431); New York Tribune, March 13,1889.

23. Scientific American 60 (March 23,1889): 181.

24. Carlos F. MacDonald to Harold Brown, March 19, 1889; Brown to Edison, March 27,1889 (both reprinted in New York Sun, August 25,1889. For a discussion of these letters, see chapter 15). For the terms of the contract, see New York Times, December 29,1889, and Kemmler Hearings, 10,1011-14.

25. Quotations from Brown, Comparative Danger, preface to the third edition; New York Evening Post, July 5,1889. Also see Brown, Electrical Distribution of Light, Heat, and Power, with a Partial List of Deaths from Electric Lighting Circuits (n. p., n. d.), 21.

26. Edison Electric circular, May 1889 (TAEM 147:237).

27. Quotation from New York Times, May 8, 1889. Also see Pittsburgh Post, May 23,1889 (TAEM 89:235); New York Star, May 9,1889; New York Tribune, May 23,1889.

28. Quotations from New York World, February 24,1889; Electrical World 14 (September 28,1889): 214.

29. American Notes and Queries 3 (June 8, July 13, 1889): 66,131.

30. Quotations from American Notes and Queries 3 (May 25, June 1,1889): 45, 37. For other coinages, see Electrician 23 (May 24,1889): 73; Electrical Review 14 (August 17,1889): 20; Medical Record 36 (August 24,1889): 223; Scientific American 63 (August 16,1890): 101.

31. Quotations from Alfred Tate to Sherburne Eaton, May 20, 1889 (TAEM 139:184); Eugene Lewis to Sherburne Eaton, June 1, 1889 (TAEM 126:46, emphasis in original); Sherburne Eaton to Alfred Tate, June 6,1889 (TAEM 126:49).

32. On June 10 the World used the word apologetically—"'Electrocution' Is Not Certain," a headline read—but two weeks later it dispensed with the quotation marks to note that Bourke Cockran's "argument against electrocution was able and telling." New York World, June 10, 26,1889.

33. Quotations from New York Times, July 11, 1889; Buffalo Courier, July 15,1889; Law Quarterly Review 7 (1891): in. Also see New York Tribune, July 11,1891; The American 20 (August 16, 1890): 357. Controversy over the word dissipated fairly quickly, and by the late 1890s even the newspapers that protested most strongly against it had succumbed to popular usage. The term soon came to refer to accidental electrical deaths as well—an even less appropriate usage considering that such deaths were not executions. Only purists continued to complain: "This barbarism jars the unhappy latinist's nerves much more cruelly than the operation denoted jars those of its victim," H. W. Fowler wrote in his classic Dictionary of Modern English Usage in 1930. Three decades later the editor of the volume's second edition conceded defeat in the matter of electrocution: "as it is established, protest is idle." H. W Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930), 130; H. W Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 2nd ed., revised by Ernest Gow-ers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 148. My thanks to Bill Gordy for bringing the Fowler references to my attention.

CHAPTER 13. CONDEMNED

1. Buffalo Express, May 8,1889.

2. Quotation from Buffalo Times, April 1,1889.

3. Quotations from Buffalo Express, May 7, March 30, 1889. Also see Buffalo Times, April 1,1889.

4. Quotations from Buffalo Times, May 8, 1889; Buffalo Evening News, May 7, 1889. Also see Buffalo Evening News, April 2, May 8,1889.

5. Quotations from Buffalo Courier, May 9, 1889; Buffalo Times, May 9, 1889; Buffalo Express, May 8,1889.

6. Quotation from Buffalo Evening News, May 10, 1889.

7. Quotations from ibid., May 7,15,1889.

8. Cockran later served three more terms in Congress; he also became a mentor to the young Winston Churchill: James H. Andrews, "Winston Churchill's Tammany Hall Mentor," New York History 71 (1990): 133-71. On Cockran's work for Cravath, see Robert T. Swaine, The Cravath Firm and Its Predecessors, 1819-1947 (New York: Ad Press, 1946), 588-89. Also see James McGurrin, Bourke Cockran: A Free Lance in American Politics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948), 94-95; New York. Herald, May 27,1889; New York World, June 6,1888.

9. Quotations from New York World, June 11,1889; New York Times, July 12,1889. Also see Buffalo Express, June 12,1889.

10. Quotations from James E. Browne to Edison, July 23,1888 (TAEM 122:909); Elihu Thomson to Charles Coffin, May 16, 1889, 1889 folder, series II, Thomson Papers. Also see Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 283.

11. Quotations from Elihu Thomson to F. P. Fish, May 6,1890, Letterbook vol. 41, p. 510, series IIA, Thomson Papers; Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 298.

12. Quotation from unidentified clipping, 1889 (TAEM 95:255). On patent disputes, see "Schedule of Suits Brought Against Light Company and Licensees," October 1,1888 (TAEM 123:86); Edison Lamp Co. to Edward Johnson, April 3,1889 (TAEM 95:848); "Patent Litigation Committee. Mr. Eaton's Mem. of Business for Meeting," October 14,1889 (TAEM 126:292).

13. "Consolidation of Electric Light Companies," Electrical Engineer 8 (February 1889): 74-75; Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 281-83; Bright, Electric Lamp Industry, 87-92; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 142-54; "Annual Convention of Edison Illuminating Companies," Electrical World 14 (August 24, 1889): 135-36; New York Tribune, February 17,1889.

14. Quotation from Edison to E. D. Adams, February 2, 1889, as quoted in Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 174.

15. "Annual Convention of Edison Illuminating Companies," Electrical World 14 (August 24, 1889): 135-36; Edison to Henry Villard, December 11, 1888 (TAEM 123:281); Israel, Edison, 321-23.

16. Quotation from New York Star, May 9,1889. Also see New York Daily Graphic, May 28, 1889; Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 8, 1889, 306. Harold Brown mentions the Leslie's article in a letter to Charles Coffin, June 3, 1889, reprinted in New York Sun, August 25,1889.

17. Quotations from Evening Post, May 14,1889, as quoted in Electrical Engineering 8 (June, 1889): 247.

18. Quotations from Medical Record 34 (November 24, 1888): 623; New York World, June 7,1889; New York Tribune, June 20,1889; New York Sun, July 17,1889. The views of several newspapers were quoted in the Buffalo Express, June 11, 1889. Although news articles in the World criticized the execution law (see June 6-11,19), the editorial page supported it (see May 25). Also see Buffalo Express, August 2,1889; New York World, June 8,1889; Electrician 23 (June 28,1889): 204-5; Medical Record 36 (July 20,1889): 69; Ludwig Gutmann, "A Review of Mr. Harold P. Brown's Experiments," Electrical World 14 (July 13, 1889): 25-26; "Mr. Harold P. Brown's Reply to Mr. Gutmann," Electrical World 14 (July 27,1889): 57; Ludwig Gutmann, "A Reply to Mr. Harold P. Brown," Electrical World 14 (September 8,1888): 134-35.

19. Quotation from New York World, June 26,1889.

CHAPTER 14. SHOWDOWN

1. The presidents of the neurological association were Frederick Peterson and Bernard Sachs; of the engineering society, Franklin Pope, Arthur Kennelly, and Schuyler S. Wheeler. See Dictionary of American Medical Biography,ed. Martin Kaufman et al. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984), 659-60; "Frederick Peterson, M.D.," Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry 4 (1938): 1021-22; Hughes, "Harold P. Brown and the Executioner's Current," 158. On Cockran, see Andrews, "Winston Churchill's Tammany Hall Mentor," 133-71; Buffalo Times, August 1,1889.

2. For West's testimony, see Kemmler Hearings, 466-76; New York Evening Post, July 19,1889; New York Sun, July 20,1889.

3. See Kemmler Hearings, 116-17.

4. For Smith's testimony, see ibid., 433-35, 476-521.

5. New York World, July 16,1889.

6. New York Sun, July 16,1889. For Tapper's testimony, see Kemmler Hearings, 208-23.

7. Ricky Jay, Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986), 156-62; Jan Bondeson, Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear (New York: Norton, 2001), 180-81.

8. Martin S. Pernick, "Back from the Grave: Recurring Controversies over Defining and Diagnosing Death in History," in Death: Beyond Whole-Brain Criteria, ed. Richard M. Zaner (Boston: Kluwer, 1988), 17-74.

9. See Electrician 21 (May 11,1888): 2. 21 (May 11,1888):

10. Kemmler Hearings, 250-52.

11. Ibid., 278.

12. Ibid., 60-66.

13. Ibid., 382.

14. Quotations from ibid., 978, 581. On Rockwell's testimony, also see the clippings in the A. D. Rockwell Notebook-Scrapbook, Bakken Library. For further comment about the cause of electrical death, see Electrician 21 (June 8,1888): 155; Edwin J. Houston, "On Death by the Electric Current," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association 25 (1888): 127-29; Philip E. Donlin, "The Pathology of Death by Electricity," Medico-Legal Journal 7(1888-89): 470-85; Harold P. Brown, "The New Instrument of Execution," North American Review 149 (November 1889): 586-93.

15. Kemmler Hearings, 882-84.

16. Ibid., 24-27.

17. Ibid., 47-48.

18. Ibid., lxxxiii.

19. Ibid., 125. On Pope's death, see Hughes, Networks of Power, 106.

20. New York Times, July 12,1889.

21. New York Sun, July 12,1889.

22. Kemmler Hearings, 1016-17; New York Evening Post, July 12, 16, 1889; New York Sun, July 13,1889; A. E. Kennelly, "The Law of Probability of Error as Applied to the Observed Electrical Resistance of the Human Body," Electrical World 14 (August 3,1889): 73-74.

23. Quotation from New York World, July 16,1889. Apparently Hale's only further participation in the matter was as author of an article, "The Kemmler Case," Albany Law Journal 41 (May 10,1890): 364-67. Also see New York Evening Post, July 9, 17,1889; New York World, July 10,1889.

24. Kemmler Hearings, 372, 391-96.

25. Quotations from New York Sun, July 24, 1889; Harold Brown to Samuel Insull, July 17,1889 (TAEM 126:50).

26. New York Times, July 24,1889; New York Daily Graphic, July 23,1889.

27. Kemmler Hearings, 623-64.

28. Ibid., 628-36.

29. New York Sun, July 24,1889.

30. On Cockran's sarcasm, see New York Times, July 24,1889.

31. Kemmler Hearings, 644-45.

32. Electrical Review, 14 (Aug. 3,1889): 2.

33. Kemmler Hearings, 652-53.

34. New York World, July 24,1889.

35. Quotations from New York World, July 25,1889; Albany Journal, July 23,1889 (TAEM 146:464).

CHAPTER 15. THE UNMASKING OF HAROLD BROWN

1. Quotations from Kemmler Hearings, 25; New York Sun, August 25,1889, letter #2.

2. Quotation from New York Sun, August 25,1889, letter #5.

3. Brown to Edison, March 17, 1889; Edison to Brown, March 22, 1889, New York Sun, August 25,1889, letters #8, 9.

4. New York Sun, August 25,1889, letter #11. On the formation of Edison General, see Israel, Edison, 321-33. My interpretation of this "consolidation" differs from that of Reynolds and Bernstein ("Edison and 'The Chair,'" 28, n. 37), who suggest that it refers to merger talks between Thomson-Houston and Edison General. Although such discussions had taken place by this time, Edison was strongly opposed to such a move, and it therefore seems unlikely that Brown would have referred to it as "approaching." The merger with Thomson-Houston did not take place until 1892. On Edison's attitudes toward the possible merger with Thomson Houston, see Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 292-93.

5. Harold Brown to Edison, May 13,1889 (TAEM 126:45).

6. Quotation from Pittsburgh Post, May 23, 1889 (TAEM 89:235). Also see Harold Brown to Charles Coffin, April 23,1889, New York Sun, August 25,1889, letter #13.

7. Harold Brown to Thomson-Houston, March 14, 1889; Charles Coffin to Brown, May 4,1889, New York Sun, August 25,1889, letters #7, #18.

8. Harold Brown to Charles Coffin, May 13, 29,1889, New York Sun, August 25, 1889, letters #20, 25.

9. Harold Brown to Charles Coffin, May 13, 1889, New York Sun, August 25, 1889, letter #20.

10. Arthur Kennelly to Harold Brown, June 29,1889, New York Sun, August 25, 1889, letter #40. Brown thanked Kennelly for the "kind letter" and said he was prepared "to make the test suggested, or to offer to do so before the referee." Brown to Kennelly, July 9,1889, New York Sun, August 25,1889, letter #45.

11. See "Some Inside History," Electrical Engineer 8 (August 1889): 335. An anonymous satiric pamphlet, almost certainly published by the Edison interests, hints that the letter thief was John H. Noble, a Westinghouse employee: Dangers of Electric Lighting. A Reply to Mr. Edison, 3,18 (ENHS: D-89-33). On the theft of the letters, see New York Journal, September 4,1889; New York Tribune, September 5,1889.

12. Arthur Kennelly to Harold Brown, June 29,1889, New York Sun, August 25, 1889, letter #40; original in TAEM 109:323. The originals of Sun letters #8 and #9 (Brown to Edison, March 17,1889; Edison to Brown, March 22,1889) can be found in TAEM 126:39; 138:1089. Another letter in the Edison archives (Brown to Edison, March 23,1889, ENHS: D-89-33) is Brown's response to Edison's Sun letter #9. Previous scholars who have examined this episode also consider the letters to be authentic: Hughes, "Harold P. Brown and the Executioner's Current," 156 n. 55; Reynolds and Bernstein, "Edison and 'The Chair,'" 27-28, n. 36.

13. Elihu Thomson to Charles Coffin, May 16, 1889, 1889 folder, Series II, Thomson Papers.

14. Quotations from New York Sun, August 25, 28, 1889; Electrical World 14 (August 31,1889): 143; Electrician 23 (September 27,1889): 534.

15. New York Sun, August 25,1889; Electrical World 14 (August 31,1889): 143.

16. New York Journal, September 4,1889 (TAEM 146:452).

17. Notebooks N-88-06-06, pp. 69,74, 78-80, July 6,12,17,1888 (TAEM 102:516, 529, 540-43); N-88-06-10, pp. 58-59, 64, 68, 77, 89 (TAEM 102:607-8, 613, 619, 629, 642-43); Kemmler Hearings, 28, 668-70.

18. Quotations from Arthur Kennelly to Electrical Review, September 7, 1888 (TAEM 109:141); Kennelly to Frank Hastings, September 6,1888 (TAEM 109:138-39); Edison to Henry Bergh, July 13,1888 (TAEM 138:441). Also see Kennelly to W. H. Snell, September 24,1888 (TAEM 109:174). Kennelly explained that he conducted the experiments "because Mr. Edison told [him] to." Kemmler Hearings, 752.

As Kennelly experimented on dogs in the fall of 1888, Brown tested leakage from light wires in Manhattan using equipment that Frank Hastings arranged for him to borrow from the Edison laboratory. See Frank Hastings to Arthur Kennelly, September 18,1888 (TAEM 122:934); Hastings to Kennelly, October 8,12,1888 (TAEM 109:1039; 124:1041); Kennelly to Harold Brown, October 12,16,1888 (TAEM 109:186,189); Brown to Kennelly, October 14,1888 (TAEM 124:1042).

My interpretation of the physiological experiments differs from those of Hughes ("Harold P. Brown and the Executioner's Current") and Reynolds and Bernstein ("Edison and 'The Chair'"), who consider Brown the lead investigator. My reading of the laboratory notebooks, combined with Kennelly's statements in letters from August and September that he conducted the experiments himself on orders from Edison, lead me to conclude that Brown's role was secondary.

19. Qtiotation from Frank Hastings to Charles Batchelor, July 20,1888 (TAEM 123:59-60). Also see Hastings to Alfred Tate, July 26,1888; Harold Brown to Arthur Kennelly, August 4, 1888; Kennelly to Hastings, August 8, 1888; Hastings to Kennelly, August 6, 8, 1888; Kennelly to Brown, August 9, 1888 (TAEM 123:62; 122:924; 109:121-22; 123:67-69; 109:123).

Brown may have been working for the Edison interests even in early June 1888, when he mounted his first public attack on alternating current, but there is no clear evidence to support this charge. Just as likely, Brown criticized alternating current out of personal conviction and thereby brought himself to the attention of the Edison interests, who realized that they could put him to use.

20. Quotation from Edward Johnson to Edison, September 18, 1888 (TAEM 122:933). Also see Alfred Tate to Johnson, September 18, 1888 (TAEM 122:565). Brown may have been the first to suggest the use of alternating current at the New York pound: see New York Herald, August 19, 1888. The city ultimately decided to use lethal gas instead of electricity: see Henry Bergh to Edison, July 28, 1888 (TAEM 122:918); American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Twenty-Third Annual Report for 1888 (New York, 1889), 12.

21. Quotation from Harold Brown to Arthur Kennelly, December 6, 1888 (TAEM 122:976). On arrangements for the December tests, see Frank Hastings to Kennelly, November 20, 24, 26, 28, 1888 (TAEM 122:955, 959> 960; 123:110); Kennelly to Hastings, November 21, 1888 (TAEM 109:196); Kennelly to Professor Marks, December 4,1888 (TAEM 109:196, 206). Edison also encouraged Scientific American to send an illustrator to the laboratory to make sketches of the equipment used in the tests: Alfred O. Tate to Scientific American, December 18, 1888 (TAEM 138:628).

Edison wanted his lobbying to remain secret. After the tests, Arthur Kennelly made some technical recommendations to the Medico-Legal Society that he believed were off the record. When he learned that the society was planning to include his statement in its official report, Kennelly begged Frederick Peterson to delete the comments: "Mr. Edison is desirous that no expression of opinion on this point should publicly emanate from the laboratory." Kennelly to Peterson, December 6,10,1888. Also see Kennelly to Brown, December 6,1888; Kennelly to Peterson, December 6, 1888; Peterson to Kennelly, December 10, 1888; Peterson to Hastings, December 13, 1888 (TAEM 109:209, 210, 215, 218; 122:979). F ° r the aftermath of the December experiments, see Peterson to Edison, December 10, 11, 1888; Peterson to Kennelly, December 10, 26,1888; Kennelly to Peterson, December 19,1888; Peterson to Kennelly, December 26,1888; Clark Bell to Edison, December 26,1888; Clark Bell to Peterson, December 26,1888 (TAEM 122:978, 980, 988, 989; 109: 225).

In the spring and summer of 1889, both Edison and the officers of Edison Electric continued to work closely with Brown, arranging for him to borrow equipment and to carry out the March tests for the state electrocution commission. See Kennelly to Brown, May 16, 30, June 6, 1889 (TAEM 109:306, 309, 313); Hastings to Edison, March 8, 1889 (TAEM 126:34); Brown to Edison, March 12, 1889 (TAEM 126:35); Hastings to Kennelly, February 25, 1889 (TAEM 126:32); Kennelly to Hastings, February 25, 1889 (TAEM 109:285); Charles K. Baker to Brown, February 20, 1889 (TAEM 126:33); Hastings to Edison, January 21, 1889; Alfred Tate to Hastings, January 24,1889 (TAEM 126:11; 138:765).

22. Quotation from Kennelly to Charles Wirt, December 7,1888 (TAEM 109:214). Also see Kennelly to Brown, December 6, 1888 (TAEM 109:210); Billbook #3, pp. 390-94, 426. For the expenses of later tests, see Billbook #6, pp. 63, 82, ENHS; "Edison Electric Light Company Memoranda," April 25,1890 (TAEM 140:1088).

CHAPTER l6. PRIDE AND REPUTATION

1. Quotation from Israel, Edison, 370. Also see Tate, Edison's Open Door, 234-36; Israel, Edison, 369-70.

2. JAMA 13 (Sept. 21,1889): 431.

3. Electrical Review 14 (June 8,1889): 5; Israel, Edison, 371.

4. New York Times, February 15,1890; A. D. Rockwell, "Discussion of Electrical Execution," JAMA 19 (September 24,1892): 363.

5. Quotations from Tate, Edison's Open Door, 164.

6. Quotations from Dickson and Dickson, Life and Inventions of Thomas Alva Edison, 330; New York Morning Sun, June 24, 1888 (TAEM 146:353; misdated as November 4, 1888 in TAEM). Also see James S. Evans, "Edison Regrets Electric Chair Was Ever Invented," New York American, February 10, 1905 (TAEM 221:289).

7. Quotations from Arthur Kennelly to C. F. MacDonald, June 5, 1889 (TAEM 109:311); New York Morning Sun, June 24,1888 (TAEM 146:353; misdated as November 4, 1888 in TAEM). Also see Brooklyn Citizen, November 4, 1888 (TAEM 25:580); New York Herald, September 29, 1889 (TAEM 146:534); Kennelly to W. H. Snell, September 24, 1888; Kennelly to Frederick Peterson, December 6, 1888 (TAEM 109:311, 174).

8. New York Evening Post, December 12, 1888; Kemmler Hearings, 652-53.

9. Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 284, n. 20; Israel, Edison, 326; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 171-73; Hughes, Networks of Power, 95-97; Electrical World 9 (January 29,1887): 51; Electrician 23 (May 23, 1890): 72.

10. Quotation from "Annual Convention of Edison Illuminating Companies," Electrical World 14 (August 24, 1889): 135-36.

11. Quotation from Edison to J. H. Herrick, October 30, 1889 (TAEM 139:825). Also see Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, Minutes of Seyni-Annual Meeting (New York, 1888), 120-21; "Explanation of Experiments Covered by Bills Rendered Edison General Electric Co.," May 14, 1890 (TAEM 130:679); W. J. Jenks to Edison, April 8, 22, 1889 (TAEM 126:259, 265); Francis Upton to Edison, May 28, 1888 (TAEM 123:36); Israel, Edison,326-27.

12. Quotation from "Annual Convention of Edison Illuminating Companies," Electrical World 14 (August 24, 1889): 135-36. Also see Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, Minutes of Semi-Annual Meeting, 120-21.

13. Quotation from Edison to Mrs. C. F. Pond, August 22, 1882. Also see Mrs. C. F. Pond to Edison, August 17, 1882 (TAEM 60:491, 81:816). On Edison's fear of alternating current, see his testimony in Kemmler Hearings, 633-34; "Notes on Distribution of Alternating Current," 7-10; Neiv York Times, June 5,1882; Max Deri, "Alternating Currents and Their Practical Uses," Electrician and Electrical Engineer 3 (September 1886): 346-47.

14. New York World, October 20, 1889. Edison was probably quoting from Jacques Arsene d'Arsonval, "Electro-Physiology," Electrician 23 (August 30, 1889): 431-42. On d'Arsonval, see Rowbottom and Susskind, Electricity and Medicine, 120-40.

15. New York Times, December 27,1882.

16. Quotation from "Notes on Distribution of Alternating Current," 9. Also see Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 102.

17. Quotations from Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 65; Joseph-son, Edison, 260.

18. See W. Bernard Carlson and A. J. Millard, "Defining Risk Within a Business Context: Thomas A. Edison, Elihu Thomson, and the a. c.-d. c. Controversy, 1885-1900," in The Social and Cultural Construction of Risk: Essays on Risk Selection and Perception, ed. Branden B. Johnson and Vincent T. Covello (Boston: Reidel, 1987).

19. Westinghouse appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1895 affirmed the decision of the lower court. Bright, Electric Lamp Industry, 92.

20. Quotation from S. B. Eaton to Edison, October 7, 1889 (TAEM 127:308).

21. Reynolds and Bernstein, "Edison and 'The Chair,'" 20-21.

22. New York. Times, September 3, 14, October 1, 9, 10, 1889; Sullivan, "From Municipal Ownership to Regulation," 149-54.

23. New York Evening Sun, October 14, 1889 (TAEM 146:545).

24. "Safety Devices with Transformers," Thomson to Electrician, February 27, 1888, series IV, Thomson Papers; Thomson to editor of Electrical Review, September 26, 1888; Thomson to Coffin, December 11, 1888, Letterbook vol. 23, pp. 314-15, 547-50, series IIA, Thomson Papers; Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 250-60.

25. Quotation from Thomson to A. C. Bernheim, October 16,1889, Letterbook vol. 30, pp. 559-66, series IIA, Thomson Papers.

26. Quotations from Thomson to J. R. Lovejoy, November 6,1889; Thomson to Electric Age, December 27, 1889; Thomson to A. C. Bernheim, October 16, 1889; Thomson to Charles Coffin, November 6,1889, Letter book vol. 30, pp. 662-67, 889, 559-66, 658-61, series IIA, Thomson Papers. Also see Elihu Thomson, "Insulation and Installation of Wires and Construction of Plant," Electrical Engineer 7 (March 1888): 90-91.

27. Quotation from Thomson to Coffin, December 24, 1889, Letterbook vol. 30, pp. 903-8, series IIA, Thomson Papers.

28. Elihu Thomson, "Safety and Safety Devices in Electric Installations," Electrical World 14 (February 22,1890): 145-46.

29. Quotations from New York Evening Post, December 12,1888; George Westinghouse, "A Reply to Mr. Edison," North American Review 149 (December 1889): 658.

30. Reynolds and Bernstein, "Edison and 'The Chair," 20.

31. 7 N.Y.S. 145 (1889); New York Tribune, September 18, 1889; New York Times, October 10,1889; Buffalo Evening News, October 9,1889; New York World, October 10, 1889; Electrical World 14 (October 19, 1889): 268; Deborah W. Denno, "Is Electrocution an Unconstitutional Method of Execution? The Engineering of Death over the Century," William and Mary Law Review 35 (1994): 578-85.

32. Quotations from 7 N.Y.S. 145 (1889).

33. New York World, October 10,1889.

CHAPTER 17. THE ELECTRIC WIRE PANIC

1. The following account of the events of October 11 is derived from New York World, Tribune, Times, and Sun, October 12, 1889. I borrow the title of this chapter from Sullivan, "From Municipal Ownership to Regulation," chap. 4.

2. New York World, October 12,1889.

3. Quotations from New York Tribune, October 13,1889; New York Sun, October 17,1889.

4. New York World, October 12,1889.

5. Quotation from ibid., January 19, 1890. Also see New York Sun, October 17, 1889.

6. New York Sun, October 13,1889; New York Sun, October 17,1889.

7. Quotation from New York World, December 14,1889. Also see Sullivan, "From Municipal Ownership to Regulation," 149; Swaine, Cravath Firm, 588-89.

8. New York Tribune, October 12,1889.

9. Quotation from New York Tribune, December 3,1889. Also see Mark Aldrich, Safety First: Technology Labor, and Business in the Building of American Work Safety (Balti­more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); John Fabian Witt, "Toward a New7 History of American Accident Law," Harvard Law Review 114 (2001): 690-837.

10. "Causes of Death from Accident in New York City," Electrical World 14 (July 13, 1889): 26; John Trowbridge, "Dangers from Electricity," Atlantic Monthly 63 (1890): 413-18; Sullivan, "From Municipal Ownership to Regulation," 166-69; Neil Harris, "Utopian Fiction and Its Discontents," in Cultural Excursions: Marketing Appetites and Cultural Tastes in Modern America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 150-73.

11. Quotations from New York World, October 12,1889; Harper's Weekly 33 (December 14,1889): 990.

12. Quotations from New York World, October 12,1889; New York Times, December 12,1889.

13. Quotations from New York Times, December 2, 1889; Telegraphic Journal and Electrical Review 25 (October 25, 1889): 461. Also see New York World, October 15, 1889; Harold P. Brown, "The New Instrument of Execution," North American Review 149 (November 1889): 586-93.

14. Quotation from Eugene Crowell to Edison, October 14,1889 (TAEM 126:86). Also see Harold Brown to Edison, October 22, November 7, December 30, 1889; Alfred Tate to Brown, November 11,1889; Bergmann and Co. to Kennelly, November 30,1889 (TAEM 126:94,129, 690; 139:910; 125:58).

15. Quotations from New York World, October 12, 1889; News (Wilmington, Del.), October 14, 1889 (TAEM 146:542); New York Evening Sun, October 14, 1889 (TAEM 146:545); New York Evening Sun, October 14,1889 (TAEM 146:545).

16. Thomas A. Edison, "The Dangers of Electric Lighting," North American Review 149 (November 1889): 625-34. Also see Edison to North American Review and Lloyd Stephens Bryce, October 14,1889 (TAEM 139:747). Commenting on this article, the Electrical Engineer wrote, "Mr. Edison appears to be wholly unable to rise above a very low plane of self-interest." Electrical Engineer 8 (December 1889): 505-6.

17. New York Times, December 2,11,12,15, 28,1889; New York World, December 2, 11,15,16,1889. Edison was asked to testify at the coroner's inquests regarding these deaths, but he did not do so. See J. B. Messemer to Edison, December 5, 10, 1889 (TAEM 126:139-42,140:4, 29).

18. Quotations from New York Tribune, December 3,1889; Post as quoted in Electrical World 14 (December 28, 1889): 411; World (Charleston, S.C.), October 14, 1889 (TAEM 146:542); unidentified clipping (TAEM 95:252). Also see Electrician 24 (November 8, 1889): 18; New York Evening Sun, October 16, 1889 (TAEM 146:542); Star (Worcester, Mass.), October 15,1889 (TAEM 146:546).

19. Quotations from Cyrus Edson and Edward Martin, report to the Health Department of the City of New York, October 15,1889 (ENHS: D-89-33); New York World, October 16, 1889; New York Commercial Advertiser, October 16,1889. Also see New York World, October 13, 15,1889; New York Evening Post, October 15,1889.

20. Quotation from New York World, December 11,1889. Also see George Westinghouse, "A Reply to Mr. Edison," North American Review 149 (December 1889): 653-64; New York Tribune, October 13,1889; Sullivan, "From Municipal Ownership to Regulation," 157.

21. New York Times, December 14,1889.

22. New York World, December 16,1889.

23. Quotations from New York Times, December 16, 25,1889. Also see New York Times, December 15-22, 24-25, 27-31,1889; New York World, 16,19, 21-22, 29-30,1889; Sullivan, "From Municipal Ownership to Regulation," 159.

24. New York World, December 17,19,1889; New York Tribune, December 28,1889; New York Times, December 15, 1889; "The Electric Light in New York, January 1, 1890," Electrical Engineer 9 (January 1890): 1; Sullivan, "From Municipal Ownership to Regulation," 490.

CHAPTER 18. DESIGNING THE ELECTRIC CHAIR

1. Quotations from 7 N.Y.S. 813 (Sup. Ct. 1889). Also see Denno, "Is Electrocution an Unconstitutional Method of Execution?" 585-88.

2. New York Times, August 6, December 29, 1889, January 19, 1890; Buffalo Express, August 7,1889; New York World, July 17, October 10, December 27,1889.

3. David J. Rothman, "Perfecting the Prison," in Oxford History of the Prison, 117-19; John N. Miskell, Executions in Auburn Prison, Auburn, New York, 1890-1916 (Auburn: n.p., 1996).

4. George Fell, "The Influence of Electricity on Protoplasm, with Some Remarks on the Kemmler Execution," Physician and Surgeon 10 (October 1890): 441-42; New York Times, January 1, February 12,1890; New York World,February 12, 1890; New York Herald, February 12, 1890; Medical Record 37 (January 11, 1890): 47; "Electric Executions," unidentified clipping, A. D. Rockwell Notebook-Scrapbook, Bakken Library; A. D. Rockwell, Rambling Recollections: An Autobiography (New York: Paul B. Hoeber, 1920), 229-30.

5. Quotations from J. Mount Bleyer, "Best Method of Executing Criminals," Medico-Legal Journal 5 (1887-88): 429-32; New York Herald, December 17, 1887. Also see Park Benjamin, "The Infliction of the Death Penalty," Forum 3 (July 1887): 503-12.

6. Quotations from New York World, December 28,1886; Commission Report, 80. Also see Scientific American 28 (June 7, 1873): 352; Manufacturer and Builder 12 (February 1880): 39; Electrical Review 9 (December 18, 1886): 7; R. D. Blackwood, "Electricity as a Means of Inflicting the Death Penalty Through Process of Law," Medical and Surgical Reporter 37 (December 10,1887): 761-64.

7. Quotation from New York Advertiser, August 3, 1888 (TAEM 146:291). Also see New York World, August 19,1888. On the question of resistance in electrocution, see A. E. Kennelly, "The Law of Probability of Error as Applied to the Observed Electrical Resistance of the Human Body," Electrical World 14 (August 3, 1889): 73-74; New York Evening Post, July 12,16,1889; New York Sun, July 13,1889.

8. Quotations from Kemmler Hearings, 52; New York World, June 22, 1888; "Report of the Committee of the Medico-Legal Society on the Best Method of Execution of Criminals by Electricity," Medico-Legal Journal 6 (1888-89): 278. Edison's manacle proposal was endorsed by Electrical Review 12 (June 30,1888): 4; and the Electrician 21 (July 13,1888): 319.

9. "Report of the Committee of the Medico-Legal Society on the Best Method of Execution of Criminals by Electricity," Medico-Legal Journal 6 (1888-89): 278. Also see Banner, Death Penalty, 181.

10. "Report of the Committee of the Medico-Legal Society on the Best Method of Execution of Criminals by Electricity," 278.

11. Kennelly Notebook #1, pp. 90-91, March 12,1889 (TAEM 104:346); New York Times, March 9,13, 1889; New York Star, March 18, 1889 (TAEM 146:431); New York Tribune, March 13,1889.

12. New York Star, May 9,1889; New York Daily Graphic, May 28,1889; Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 8,1889, p. 306; Kemmler Hearings, 1015, lxxxiii.

13. Quotation from Fell, "The Influence of Electricity on Protoplasm," 442-43. Also see Buffalo Daily Times, April 30, 1890. Works suggesting, incorrectly, that Stickley did design the first chair include Barry Sanders, A Complex Fate: Gustav Stickley and the Craftsman Movement (New York: Wiley, 1996), 8; Mary Ann Smith, Gustav Stickley: The Craftsman (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1983), 4; Rita Reif, "The Master of Mission," New York Times, July 9,1978, sec. 2, p. 27. On the 1893 electrocution, see New York Herald, July 28,1893.

14. Quotations from Edison to Henry Villard, February 8,1890 (TAEM 140:510); Richmond Times, February 12,1890. While attacking Westinghouse on the question of safety, the Edison forces continued to pursue the matter of alternating current's efficiency. Harold Brown's Sun letters revealed that he wanted to send a Westinghouse dynamo to Johns Hopkins University for efficiency tests. Despite the bad publicity, the tests went ahead as planned, and they showed that the Westinghouse system was far less efficient than claimed. Brown, Kennelly, and Edison worked together to publicize the inefficiency of the Westinghouse system. See Harold P. Brown, A Test of the Efficiency of a Westinghouse Alternating Current Electric Lighting Plant (New York: J. W. Pratt, 1890); Electrician 24 (April 4,1890): 554; Kennelly to Edison, February 15,1890; Kennelly to Brown, February 15, March 30, 1890; Alfred Tate to Edison, March 3, 1890; Harvey Ward Leonard to Tate, March 10, 1890 (TAEM 109:417, 413; 130:666; 140:633; 129:449).

15. Quotations from Richmond Daily Times, February 12, 13, 1890. Also see Richmond Dispatch, February 12,13,1890; Electrical World 15 (February 22,1890): 156; Lewis B. Stillwell, "Alternating Versus Direct Current," Electrical Engineering 53 (1934): 708-10; Hughes, "Harold P. Brown and the Executioner's Current," 155.

16. Quotation from Kennelly to Edison, March 8, 1890 (TAEM 109:433). Also see Kennelly Notebook #3, March 8, 1890; Jacob Herrick to Charles Batchelor, March 3, 1890; Charles Batchelor to Edison, March 3, 1890 (TAEM 104:621, 128: 1098-1100).

17. Quotations from New York Herald, January 23, 1890; New York Times, January 23, 1890. Also see New York Herald, January 24, February 16, 1890; New York Times, February 16, 1890.

18. New York Times, April 4,1890.

19. New York Herald, February 21, March 28,1890; New York Times, February 21, 25, March 1, 2, 4, 12,16,18,19, 21, 27, 29, April 4,19,1890; New York World, March 1, 2, 15,1890; New York Tribune, March 1, 2, 4,15, 28, April 4,1890.

20. Quotations from New York World, December 15, 1888, which printed the opinions of many newspaper reporters on this topic.

21. Quotations from New York Herald, February 13,1890; Additional Report of the Commissioners on Capital Punishment of the State of New York, 19-20. Also see New York Herald, February 15, 1890; New York Times, March 12,1890.

22. 119 N.Y. Reports 569-79 (1890); Denno, "Is Electrocution an Unconstitutional Method of Execution?" 588-89; New York Times, New York World, New York Tribune, February 26, March 22, 1890.

CHAPTER 19. THE CONVERSION OF WILLIAM KEMMLER

1. Quotations from New York World, April 1,1890.

2. Quotation from ibid. Also see New York World, December 31,1889.

3. New York World, April 29,1890.

4. Quotations from New York Herald, April 7,1890.

5. Quotations from ibid., April 7,1890.

6. Quotation from ibid., April 20, 23, 1890. Also see New York World, April 27, 1890.

7. Quotation from Buffalo Evening News, April 29,1890. Also see New York Herald, April 29,1890.

8. New York World, April 30,1890.

9. Quotations from New York World, April 27,1890; Buffalo Evening News, April 29,1890. Also see Auburn Bulletin, April 24, 28,1890; New York World, April 28,1890.

10. Quotations from New York Herald, April 7, 1890; New York World, April 28, 1890.

11. New York World, April 26,1890.

12. Quotation from New York Herald, April 20, 1890. At the time, an ordinary barber's chair meant a simple wooden chair with a footrest. See, for instance, the "American Shaving Chair" in R. Hovenden and Sons, Revised and Illustrated Catalogue of Perfumery, Combs, Brushes … (London, 1867), 119, Department of Drawings and Prints, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

13. New York Herald, April 20, 27, 29,1890; New York World, April 26, 29,1890.

14. New York Times, April 29, 30,1890.

15. Reprinted in Electrical Engineer 9 (May 14,1890): 350.

16. New York World, New York Herald, April 30,1890.

17. New York Sun, April 30,1890; New York World, April 30,1890; New York Times, April 30,1890. Also see Fell, "Influence of Electricity," 444-45. Brown's association with the Edison interests continued for some years. He worked with Thomas Edison on insulation, metal alloys, and other products past the turn of the century. He later became a member of the "Edison Pioneers," an association of those who worked with the inventor. In his application to join the Pioneers, he cited his work at the laboratory on "Determination of current best suited for electrical execu­tion" and claimed to have "appeared as his [Edison's] personal representative before the Ohio Legislature" in the matter of restricting alternating current. See Brown folder, Edison Pioneers collection, ENHS. Also see Brown's correspondence with the Edison laboratory, 1893-1905, in TAEM. For Brown's later career as an inventor, see National Cyclopedia of American Biography, volume B (New York: James T. White, 1927), 329-30.

18. Quotations from New York World, April 30,1890; New York Herald, May 4,1890.

19. Quotations from New York Herald, May 4,1890; New York World, May 2,1890; New York Times, May 24,1890. Also see Matthew Hale, "The Kemmler Case," Albany Law Journal 41 (May 10,1890): 364-47.

20. New York Herald, May 4,1890.

21. Ibid., May 1,1890. For Westinghouse's letter to Sherman, see Buffalo Express, August 9, 1890. For estimates of Westinghouse expenses, see New York Tribune, August 7,1890; Scientific American 63 (August 16,1890): 96.

22. 136 U.S. 436 (1890); Denno, "Is Electrocution an Unconstitutional Method of Execution?" 590-92.

23. New York Herald, June 15, 25,1890; New York Times, June 25,1890; Utica Saturday Globe, June 21,1890, typescript reproduction, New-York Historical Society.

24. New York Herald, June 25,1890.

CHAPTER 20. THE FIRST EXPERIMENT

1. New York World, August 7,1890. This chapter is based primarily on coverage in the following newspapers for August 7, 1890: New York World, New York Times, New York Herald, New York Tribune, New York Sun, Buffalo Evening News, Buffalo Express, Buffalo Courier, Auburn Bulletin, Auburn Daily Advertiser. Most of the articles were based on accounts provided by the reporters for the Associated Press and the United Press, the only newspaper representatives to witness the execution. The World is a particularly good source because it printed, in addition to its own story, the full A.P. and U.P. reports. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from the World. Also see Fell, "Influence of Electricity"; Charles R. Huntley, "The Execution as Seen by an Electrician," Electrical World 16 (August 16,1890): 100; Carlos F. Mac­Donald, "The Infliction of the Death Penalty by Means of Electricity," New YorkMedical Journal 33 (May 7,1892): 505-9, 535-42.

2. New York Times, August 2, 4, 6,1890; New York Herald, August 3, 6,1890; Fell, "Influence of Electricity," 447.

3. On Gerry's whereabouts, see New York Sun, August 2,1890.

4. On Spitzka, see Charles E. Rosenberg, The Trial of the Assassin Guiteau: Psychiatry and Law in the Gilded Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968); Dictionary of American Medical Biography, ed. Martin Kaufman et al. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984), 709-10.

5. For details of this discussion, see New York Herald, August 7, 1890; Mac­Donald, "Infliction of the Death Penalty," 506.

6. Fell, "Influence of Electricity," 449.

7. Ibid., 435.

CHAPTER 21. AFTER KEMMLER

1. The headlines appeared in the August 7,1890, editions of these newspapers.

2. Quotation from Buffalo Express, August 5, 1890. Also see New York Times, August 7,1890; New York Sun, August 6,1890.

3. Quotation from "The First Execution by Electricity," Medical Record 38 (August 9,1890): 154-56. Also see New York Times, New York Herald, August 8,1890.

4. Quotations from New York Herald, August 7, 8,1890.

5. Utica Saturday Globe, August 16, 1890, typescript reproduction, New-York Historical Society; Buffalo Courier, August 8, 1890; New York Tribune, August 7, 1890.

6. Quotations from Buffalo Evening News, August 7, 1890; Electrical Review 16 (August 16,1890). Also see George F. Shrady, "The Death Penalty," Arena 2 (1890): 513-23; "Some Remarks on the Kemmler Vivisection," Electrical Engineer 10 (August 13,1890): 169-70; New York Herald, August 7,1890; Auburn Daily Advertiser, August 7, 1890.

7. Quotations from Public Opinion 9 (1890): 432-35; New York Times, August 7, 1890. Also see Electrical World 16 (August 16,1890): 105.

8. New York Times, August 7,1890.

9. Quotations from Buffalo Eve?nng News, August 6, 1890; New York World, August 7,1890; New York Sun, August 7,1890. Also see Public Opinion 9 (1890): 432-35.

10. Quotation from New York Tribune, October 9, 1890. Also see "The Official Report of the Execution by Electricity," Medical Record 38 (October 18, 1890): 438; MacDonald, "Infliction of the Death Penalty," 505-9; 535-44.

11. Quotations from E. C. Spitzka, "Preliminary Report Concerning the Post Mortem Changes in the First Person Executed by Electricity," Atlanta Medical and Surgical Journal n.s. 7 (1890-91): 460-61; Fell, "Influence of Electricity," 449-50. Also see New York Herald, August 7,1890.

12. Quotation from New York Tribune, November 22, 1890. Also see New York Times, November 25,1890; Jugiro v. Brush, 140 U.S. 686.

13. New York Tribune, November 22,1890.

14. Quotations from New York Evening Sun, July 7, 1891, Rockwell Scrapbooks, Bakken Library; New York Herald, July 8, 1891. Also see New York Times, July 8, 1891. A few months later Kennelly did similar work on the ammeter for the Clinton Prison execution plant. Kennelly Notebook #4, pp. 27, 37, 112, December 13, 1890, March 21, 1891 (TAEM 105: 41, 54, 165). On the appeals of the other prisoners, see New York Times, November 26, 28, 30, December 2, 1890, January 8, March 13, 27, April 11, 19, May 12, June 5,12, 13, 1891; New York Herald, January 9, February 18, 1891.

15. Quotations from Carlos MacDonald and S. B. Ward to W R. Brown, July 30,1891, printed in Medico-Legal Journal 9 (1891-92): 167-73.

16. See Marlin Shipman, '"Killing Me Softly'? The Newspaper Press and the Reporting on the Search for a More Humane Execution Technology," American Journalism 13 (1996): 176-205.

17. See New York Herald, July 9,1891; clippings in Rockwell Scrapbooks, Bakken Library.

18. Quotation from Kennelly Notebook #5, p. 88, September 15, 1891 (TAEM 105:403). Also see New York Herald, July 8, 1891; Kemmler Hearings, 630; New York Times, August 7,1890. Harold Brown, most likely at Edison's suggestion, also proposed liquid electrodes at one point: Harold P. Brown, "The New Instrument of Execution," North American Review 149 (November 1889): 586-93.

19. Quotations from Arthur Kennelly to Alfred Southwick, September 15,1891 (the microfilmed version of this letter [TAEM 109:874] is largely indecipherable; for the somewhat more legible original, see Kennelly Letterbook #5, p. 263, ENHS); Southwick to Kennelly, September 21,1891 (TAEM 142:802). Edison's secretary provided the inventor with copies of the Kennelly-Southwick correspondence. See Alfred Tate to Edison, September 23,1891 (TAEM 142:801).

20. New York Herald, December 8, 1891. Also see the New York World, New York Sun, December 8,1891; MacDonald, "Infliction of the Death Penalty."

21. New York Herald, August 5, 1891, February 5,1892; New York World, February 8,1892; New York Times, January 6, February 9,1892.

22. Quotation from New York Sun, February 9,1892. Also see New York Herald, New York World, New York Times, February 9, 1892; Kennelly to Carlos MacDonald, February 3, 1892 (TAEM 109:968); Reynolds and Bernstein, "Edison and 'The Chair,'" 25-26.

23. Quotations from New York Herald, February 9, 1892.

24. New York Times, February 9, 1892. Edison had no comment, but Kennelly admitted the error in a brief paper about the execution: A. E. Kennelly, "Physiological Observations at the Mcllvaine \sic] Electrocution," Electrical Engineer 13 (February 17, 1892): 137-38. Also see W. J. Jenks, "Electrical Execution," New York. Medical Journal 33 (May 14, 1892): 542-44; Kennelly Notebook #6, p. 32, February 8, 1891 (TAEM 105:580).

25. On electrocution techniques, see A. E. Kennelly and Augustin H. Goelet, "Does Execution by Electricity, as Practiced in New York State, Produce Instantaneous, Painless and Absolute Death?—Observations Made at the Execution of David Hampton, at Sing Sing, Jan. 28, 1895," Electrical World 25 (February 16,1895): 197; for the next Auburn execution, see New York Herald, May 19, 1892. In August 1892 the electric chair at Clinton Prison in Dannemora was pressed into service for the first time, and proved reasonably successful: see New York Herald, August 3, 1892; "Electrical Execution," JAMA 19 (August 1892): 236. For coverage of later electrocutions, see, for example, New York Herald, January 21, 1897. For a list of executions, see Daniel Allen Hearn, Legal Executions in New York State: A Comprehensive Reference, 1639-1963 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1997): 81-91.

26. New York Herald, July 28, 29, 1893; J. W. Brown, "The Latest Electrocution," Medical Record 44 (August 12, 1893): 222-23. The controversy over this case revived two years later: New York Herald, July 23, August 2, 1895. For a similar controversy, see "A Ghastly View of Electrical Execution," New York Medical Journal 68 (October 1,1898): 487; W M. Hutchinson, "Electrical Execution," New York Medical Journal 68 (December 10,1898): 861.

27. Quotations from New York Herald, February 11, 1892; "Electrical Execution," 236. For other responses to electrocution in medical journals, see "Electrocution So-Called and Its Lesson," JAMA 15 (August 23, 1890): 290; MacDonald, "Infliction of the Death Penalty"; MacDonald and S. B. Ward to W. R. Brown, July 30, 1891, in Medico-Legal Journal 9 (1891-92): 167-73. On the attempt to return to hanging, see New York Sun, New York World,February 9, 1892; New York Herald, March 17, 1892; New York Times, March 31,1892. On poison and other scientific killing methods, see S. W Abbott, "Carbonic Oxide vs. Electricity," Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 121 (August 15, 1889): 171-72; M. S. Macy, "What Is the Proper Mode of Executing Criminals," Transactions of the Illinois State Medical Society 44 (1894): 526-32; Leonard S. Taylor, "The Humane Execution of Condemned Criminals," Chicago Medical Times 28 (1895): 323-24; "A Plea for Humane Executions," Medical Review (St. Louis) 33 (1896): 148-50; F. O. Marsh, "Some Medical Aspects of Capital Punishment," Transactions of the Ohio State Medical Society (1898): 416-21.

CHAPTER 22. THE END OF THE BATTLE OF THE CURRENTS

1. Quotation from Samuel Insull to Edison, July 16, 1890 (TAEM 129:228). Also see "Annual Convention of Edison Illuminating Companies," Electrical World 14 (August 24,1889): 135-36.

2. For the work on alternating current, see John Kruesi to Samuel Insull, July 31,1890 (TAEM 129:236); Samuel Dana Greene to Edison, October 10,1890 (TAEM 129:263); Alfred Tate to Greene, October 14, 1890 (TAEM 141:638); Tate to Insull, November 1, 1890 (TAEM 141:700); Insull to J. C. Henderson, November 5, 1890 (TAEM 129:277); Insull to Tate, November 6,1890 (TAEM 129:276); Kennelly Notebook #3, August 22,1890, pp. 101,128,136-39,148,150 (TAEM 104: 730,740, 768, 782, 787, 800, 803); "Memorandum of Mr. Edison's Work During the Year 1891," January 6,1892 (TAEM 143:16); Israel, Edison, 333.

3. Quotations from Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 284, n. 20; New York Herald, November 16, 1890. When the state needed a new execution generator at the end of 1890, the Edison company considered adapting one of its own new alternating generators for the purpose. It is unclear whether the machine was actually sold to the state. See Kennelly to J. C. Henderson, December 14, 1890 (TAEM 109:648). Five years later, Edison said that if 2,000-volt alternating-current wires were properly maintained, "the danger to human life, by reason of electric shocks, is insignificant." Edison to G. W. Grant, July 1895 (TAEM 135:793; month conjectured by TAEM).

4. Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 287-91; Israel, Edison, 335-36.

5. Quotation from Edison to Henry Villard, April 1,1889 (TAEM 144:216).

6. Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 281-83, 294; Bright, Electric Lamp Industry, 87-88.

7. Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 294-301; Israel, Edison, 336; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 150, 321-27.

8. Quotations from New York World, February 21,1892.

9. Quotations from Israel, Edison, 336; Edison to Henry Villard, April 1, 1889 (TAEM 144:216). Also see Tate, Edison's Open Door, 260-61; New York Tribune, February 20,1892; Newark Call, February 28,1892 (TAEM 146:752); Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 281-82.

10. Edison to Henry Villard, February 8,1890 (TAEM 140:510).

11. Quotations from Tate, Edison's Open Door, 278. Also see Israel, Edison, 335-37.

12. Quotation from Israel, Edison, 292. Also see Charles Musser, Thomas A. Edison and His Kinetographic Motion Pictures (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995).

13. Israel, Edison, 338-62.

14. Ibid., 335-37.

15. Kline, "Science and Engineering Theory," 288-92; Hughes, Networks of Power, 129-35.

16. Quotation from Edward Dean Adams, Niagara Power: History of the Niagara Falls Power Company, 1886-1918, 2 vols. (Niagara Falls, N.Y.: privately printed, 1927), 1:144. Also see Steven Lubar, "Transmitting the Power of Niagara: Scientific, Technological, and Cultural Contexts of an Engineering Decision," IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 8 (March 1989): 11-13; Robert Belfield, "The Niagara System: The Evolution of an Electric Power Complex at Niagara Falls, 1883-1896," Proceedings of the IEEE 64 (1976): 1344-45.

17. Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 142-43; Daniel H. Burnham, The Final Official Report of the Director of Works of the World's Columbian Exposition (New York: Garland, 1989), 5-6.

18. Quotations from J. P. Barret, Electricity at the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago: R. R. Donnelley & Sons, 1894), xi, 451; Marian Shaw, World's Fair Notes: A Woman Journalist Views Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition (St. Paul, Minn.: Pogo Press, 1992), 4.

19. Hughes, Networks of Power, 122-25; Barret, Electricity at the World's Columbian Exposition, 166.

20. Belfield, "The Niagara System," 1349-50; Hughes, Networks of Power, 137-39; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 292-93.

21. Andre Millard, "Thomas Edison, the Battle of the Systems and the Persistence of Direct Current," Material History Review 36 (Fall 1992): 18-28; Hughes, Networks of Power, 81, 120-26; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers,175; Prout, Life of George Westinghouse, 115-16.

CHAPTER 23. THE AGE OF THE ELECTRIC CHAIR

1. On the Massachusetts law, see Commonwealth v. Storti, 178 Mass. 549 (1901); Hiller B. Zobel, "The Death of Luigi Storti," Massachusetts Legal History 7 (2001): 81-93; New York Tribune, April 15, 1898. On Ohio, see Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Ohio Penitentiary … for the Fiscal Year 1896 (Norwalk, Ohio: Laning, 1897), 10, 43-44; Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Ohio Penitentiary … for the Fiscal Year 1897 (Norwalk, Ohio: Laning, 1898), 17, 37; New York Tribune, November 27, 1896; New York Herald, November 20, 1897; F. O. Marsh, "Some Medical Aspects of Capital Punishment," Transactions of the Ohio State Medical Society (1898): 416-21. Harold P. Brown, on behalf of Edison, wrote to German officials explaining electrocution: see Richard J. Evans, Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany, 1600-1987 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 426.

2. Ronald Kline, "Science and Engineering Theory"; Theodore Bernstein, "Theories of the Causes of Death from Electricity"; Reynolds and Bernstein, "Edison and 'The Chair,'" 26; A. J. Jex-Blake, "Death by Electric Currents and by Lightning," British Medical Journal 1 (1913): 425-30, 492-98, 548-52; Jaffe, "Electropathology," 837-70.

3. Quotation from Edwin J. Houston and A. E. Kennelly, "Death by the Alternating Current," JAMA 25 (August 1895): 283-85. Also see Kennelly and Goelet, "Does Execution by Electricity," 197; Arthur E. Kennelly and E. R. W Alexander-son, "The Physiological Tolerance of Alternating-Current Strengths up to Frequencies of 100,000 Cycles per Second," Electrical World 36 (July 21, 1910): 154-56; Arthur E. Kennelly, "The Danger of Electric Shock from the Electrical Engineering Standpoint," Physical Therapeutics 45 (1927): 16-23.

4. Quotation from Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 7, 1895. Also see Buffalo Times, August 8, 1895 (TAEM 146:970). As late as 1938 Popular Science Monthly reported that research at Harvard Medical School indicated that the electric chair's victim "may only be shocked into a semblance of death and that the final spark of life is extinguished unwittingly in the autopsy room." Robert E. Martin, "Electric Shocks … Do They Really Kill?" Popular Science Monthly 133 (July 1938): 44-45,101. Also see Louise G. Robinovitch, "Electrocution: An Experimental Study with an Electric Current of Low Tension," Journal of Mental Pathology 7 (1905): 75-85; Banner, Death Penalty, 191-92.

5. Quotation from Encyclopedia Britannica, nth ed. (1910), s.v. "electrocution." Also see Newark Evening News, Trenton Evening Times, December 11, 1907. For an abstract of a Spitzka article, see James W. Garner, "Infliction of the Death Penalty by Electricity," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 1 (1910): 626. For other medical journal response, see A. D. Rockwell, "Discussion of Electrical Execution," JAMA 19 (September 24, 1892): 363-65; George E. Fell, "Electrodes, and Their Application in Electrocution," JAMA 19 (September 24, 1892): 365-67; Edmund W. Holmes, "Anatomy of a Hanging," Pennsylvania Medical Journal 4 (1901): 737-45; S. R. Klein, "Capital Punishment in the Electric Chair," New York Medical Journal 99 (May 30, 1914): 1089-90; A. H. Werner, "Death by Electricity," New York Medical Journal 118 (October 1923): 498-500. For criticism of the electric chair, see "Failure of Electrocution," Medical Record 65 (June 25, 1904): 1050; Frederic Rowland Marvin, "Execution by Electricity," Medical Record 66 (July 23, 1904): 145-46; S. R. Klein, "Capital Punishment in the Electric Chair," New York Medical Journal 99 (May 30, 1914): 1089-90.

6. Execution of Czolgosz, with Panorama of Auburn Prison (Thomas A. Edison, 1901). The film was first advertised in the New York Clipper, November 16, 1901, p. 832. For a brief discussion of the film, see Charles Musser, Thomas A. Edison and His Kinetographic Motion Pictures (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 32-3. On the actual Czolgosz case, see Carlos F. MacDonald, "The Trial, Execution, Autopsy, and Mental Status of Leon F. Czolgosz," and Edward Anthony Spitzka, "A Report of the Post-Mortem Examination," New York Medical Journal 73 (January 4,1902): 12-23.

7. New York World, New York Herald, New York Tunes, January 5,1903. Electrocuting an Elephant, (Thomas A. Edison, 1903). The film was first advertised in the New York Clipper, January 17, 1903, p. 1052, as Electrocution of the Baby Elephant, 'Topsy' (Topsy was in fact more than thirty years old). A clip from this Edison film appears in Errol Morris's documentary, Mr. Death (Lion's Gate Films, 1999). In 1901 officials of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo tried to kill the rogue elephant Jumbo II. Electricians gave the elephant six shocks at 2,200 volts, but the "shocks had simply tickled him." New York Herald, November 9,10,1901.

8. For New Jersey's first electrocution, see Newark Evening News, December 11, 1907; Trenton Evening Times, December 11,1907. On Davis, see New York Times, April 29, 1890; New York Sun, April 30, 1890, July 8, 1891; New York Tunes, August 6,1890; Thomas P. Dimitroff and Lois S. Janes, History of the Coming-Painted Post Area (Corning, N.Y.: Corning Area Bicentennial Committee, 1977), 147; Robert G. Elliott, Agent of Death: The Memoirs of an Executioner (New York: Dutton, 1940), 51.

9. Quotations from Adams Electric Company to E. F. Morgan, March 30,1908; Adams Electric to E. F. Morgan, September 25, 1908, Virginia folder, Miscellaneous Correspondence folder, Carl F. Adams Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries (hereinafter cited as "Adams Papers"). Also see North Carolina and South Carolina folders, Adams Papers; "Trentonian Built Death Chair at Prison Here; Consulted with Edison, then Went to Work," unidentified, undated clipping (probably 1936), Adams Papers; Charles V. Carrington, "The History of Electrocution in the State of Virginia," Virginia Medical Semi Monthly (November 11, 1910): 353-54; Daily State Gazette (Trenton), August 20, 1910. When a state official in Canton, China, wanted to adopt electrocution, his repre-sentatives wrote to Montgomery Ward of Chicago, apparently under the impression that electric chairs might be available by mail order, alongside washing machines and dining room tables. Montgomery Ward referred the Chinese official to the Virginia penitentiary, which referred the matter to Adams, who offered an electrocution plant for $3,000 plus all expenses for his trip to China to install it. J. A. Cheony to Virginia State Penitentiary, January 14, 1914; Adams Electric Company to Cheony, February 28, 1913, China, Kansas, Kentucky folder, Adams Papers.

10. James W. Clarke, "Without Fear or Shame: Lynching, Capital Punishment and the Subculture of Violence in the American South," British Journal of Political Science 28 (1998): 269-89; Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black. America (New York: Random House, 2002). For the phonograph recording of the lynching, see Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 159.

11. For articles explicitly promoting capital punishment as an alternative to lynching, see "Lynch Law and Its Remedy," Yale Law Journal 8 (October 1898): 335-40; J. E. Cutler, "Capital Punishment and Lynching," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 29 (1907): 622-25. Virginia's prison surgeon preferred the electric chair because, he said, it prevented its victims from finding glory on the gallows: "A negro likes nothing better than to be the central figure, be it a cake-walk or a hanging." Carrington, "The History of Electrocution in the State of Virginia," 353. For death penalty statistics, see William J. Bowers, Legal Homicide: Death as Punishment in America, 1864-1982 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1984), appendix A.

12. Banner, Death Penalty, 196-202, 349, n. 36; Bowers, Legal Homicide, 9-15; Roger Lane, "Capital Punishment," in Violence in America: An Encyclopedia, ed. Ronald Gottesman (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999), 201; Stephen Trombley, The Execution Protocol (London: Century, 1993), 12-13, 96-99.

13. Bungled electrocutions may have increased in frequency as the century progressed. Professionals of the stature of Alfred Kennelly or Alfred A. Spitzka became less willing to offer their services, and inept prison handymen sometimes found themselves in charge of electric chair maintenance, with disastrous results. In the 1980s America's foremost engineer in matters of execution was a man named Fred Leuchter, who designed and sold equipment to several state prisons. After Leuchter became involved with Holocaust denial groups, reporters discovered that his only college degree was a B.A. in history. After being charged with practicing engineering without a license, he filed a consent decree with a Massachusetts court in which he agreed to stop representing himself as an engineer. Denno, "Is Electrocution an Unconstitutional Method of Execution?" 37-43; Errol Morris, Mr. Death (Lion's Gate Films, 1999); Harold Hillman, "The Possible Pain Experienced During Execution by Different Methods," Perception 22 (1993): 745-53; Harold Hillman, "An Unnatural Way to Die," New Scientist (October 27, 1983): 276-78; A. Sances et al., "Electrical Injuries," Surgery, Gynecology, and Obstetrics 149 (July 1979): 97; Mark Costanzo, Just Revenge: Costs and Consequences of the Death Penalty (New York: St. Martin's, 1997), 43-45; Jacob Weisburg, "This Is Your Death," New Republic 205 (July 1, 1991): 23-27; Austin Sarat, "Killing Me Softly: Capital Punishment and the Technologies for Taking Life," in Pain, Death, and the Law (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 43-70; Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Who Owns Death? Capital Punishment, the American Conscience, and the End of Executions (New York: William Morrow, 2000), 36; Susan Lehman, "A Matter of Engineering: Capital Punishment as a Technical Problem," Atlantic Monthly 263 (February 1990): 26-29.

14. Banner, Death Penalty, 220-23; John F. Galliher, Gregory Ray, and Brent Cook, "Abolition and Reinstatement of Capital Punishment During the Progressive Era and Early Twentieth Century," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 83 (1992): 538-78; Norman S. Hayner and John R. Cranor, "The Death Penalty in Washington State," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 284 (1952): 101-4; Ellen Elizabeth Guillot, "Abolition and Restoration of the Death Penalty in Missouri," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 284 (1952): 105-14.

15. Banner, Death Penalty, 223-27, 240; Bowers, Legal Homicide, 21-24, 67-102; Hugo Adam Bedau, ed., The Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 11-17.

16. Quotation from Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). Also see Banner, Death Penalty, 228-30, 247-66; Bedau, Death Penalty in America, 183-85.

17. Banner, Death Penalty, 257-78, 284-90; Bedau, Death Penalty in America, 16-7, 185-87

18. Banner, Death Penalty, 267, 275-78, 284-90; Bedau, Death Penalty in America, 17-8; Phoebe C. Ellsworth and Samuel R. Gross, "Hardening of the Attitudes: Americans' Views of the Death Penalty," in Bedau, Death Penalty in America, 90-115.

19. Banner, Death Penalty, 300; Amnesty International Web site, http://www.web.amnesty.org/rmp/dplibrary.nsf/ff6dd728f6268d0480256aab003d14a8/46e4de9db90876358025688100506350 Open Document, July 10, 2002.

20. Quotation from Evans, Rituals of Retribution, 427. Also see Report of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, 1949-1933 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1953), 256; Evans, Rituals of Retribution, 427. Political differences also played a role. In Britain and France, the decision to abolish the death penalty was extremely unpopular at first. But the national governments refused to reinstate it, and eventually the people came to support the ban. After the Furman decision, politicians in many American states proved more responsive to public opinion and immediately brought back the death penalty. Banner, Death Penalty, 281-82, 300-301; Roger Hood, The Death Penalty: A World-Wide Perspective, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); Bedau, Death Penalty in America, 10; Evans, Rituals of Retribution, 537.

21. Quotation from Trombley, Execution Protocol, 277. Also see Denno, "Is Electrocution an Unconstitutional Method of Execution?"

22. Quotations from New York Times, March 7, 2001. The "offending standards of decency" phrase is drawn from a 1958 Supreme Court decision, Trop v. Dulles, that had become central to arguments concerning the Eighth Amendment. See Banner, Death Penalty, 237.

23. Statistics courtesy Death Penalty Information Center, personal correspondence with author, May 15, 2002; Carol Robinson, "Block First Woman Executed Since '37," Birmingham News, May 10, 2002; Maria Glod, "Family's Killer Dies in Va. Electric Chair," Washington Post, April 10, 2003, p. Bi.

EPILOGUE. THE NEW SPECTACLE OF DEATH

1. The anecdote is recounted in Wachhorst, Thomas Alva Edison, 3.

2. See "Chronology of Thomas Edison's Life," Thomas A. Edison Papers Web site, http://edison.rutgers.edu/chron2.htm, August 4, 2002; Wachhorst, Thomas Alva Edison, 21-22; Baldwin, Edison, 370.

3. James S. Evans, "Edison Regrets Electric Chair Was Ever Invented," New York American, February 10, 1905 (TAEM 221:289). In 1909 Edison again endorsed electrical execution in a private letter written by his secretary: "Mr. Edison directs me to write you that his belief, based on experiments with animals in this Laboratory is that a person electrocuted is mentally dead in less than 1/1000 of a second, and physically dead in two seconds; any motions made after that time is reflect [sic] action." Harry Frederick Miller to William H. Roberts, May 29, 1909 (TAEM 198:108). The official biography is Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin, Edison: His Life and Inventions, 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1910).

4. See Reynolds and Bernstein, "Edison and 'The Chair.'"

5. New York World, December 21,1889. As late as 1907, Edison was still throwing his support behind efforts to limit high-voltage transmission within cities. See "Edison Condemns High Voltages," Newark Advertiser, December 26,1907, clippings file, ENHS.

6. Quotation from Electrician 24 (November 15, 1889): 41. Also see New York World, December 17,1889.

7. Quotation from New York World, October 20,1889.

8. On low-voltage deaths, see A. E. Pain, "A Case of Death from the Electric Current While Handling the Telephone and an Electric Light Fixture," Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 155 (1906): 741; F. E. Jones, "A Case of Death from the Electric Current as a Result of Turning on an Electric Light," Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 160 (1909): 239; C. Van Zwaluwenburg, "A Case of Accidental Electrocution from Ordinary One Hundred Volt Alternating Lighting Current,"JAMA 41 (1903): 967. Most accidental deaths occurred in industry. See "Fatal Accidents from Electric Shock in Recent Years in the United States and Canada, in England and Wales, and in Canada: A Report by the Engineering Committee of the Conference on Electric Shock," Journal of Industrial Hygiene 10 (1928): 111-16; Mark Aldrich, Safety First: Technology, Labor, and Business in the Building of American Work Safety (Bal­timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 84. Also see Carlson and Millard, "Defining Risk Within a Business Context."

9. Suspicions of Westinghouse interference persisted even after Kemmler's death. When Shibuya Jugiro filed an appeal claiming that electrocution was cruel, the Herald complained, "It is within the power of the Westinghouse or any other electric light concern to baffle the law of capital punishment." When a state senator moved to abolish electrocution in 1892, the move was dismissed as a ploy by "the interested electric machinery companies." New York Herald, January 9, 1891; March 17,1892.

10. Quotation from New York World, June 22,1888.

11. Quotation from Bill Sloat, "Ohio's Electric Chair Is History," Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 27, 2002. On requests to attend executions, see Edmund W Holmes, "Anatomy of a Hanging," Pennsylvania Medical Journal 4(1901): 737-74. On electrocution exhibits at a dime museum, see Monthly Catalogue, Eden Musee, March 1893, November 1906, Billy Rose Theater Collection of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; Kathleen Kendrick, '"The Things Down Stairs': Containing Horror in the Nineteenth-Century Wax Museum," Nineteenth-Century Studies 12 (1998): 1-35. On the chair at the world's fair, see Moses P. Handy, Official Directory of the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago: W. B. Conkey, 1893), 648; Shaw, World's Fair Notes, 44. On electric chair carnival sideshows, see Jay, Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, 129-31.

12. Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 467,489, emphasis in original. Also see H. Bruce Franklin, War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 62-64; H. Bruce Franklin, "Billy Budd and Capital Punishment: A Tale of Three Centuries," American Literature 69 (1997): 337-59. Twain may have been inspired by a statement made by Edison in his first public statement on the electrocution law: "An electric light current will kill a regiment in the ten-thousandth part of a second." New York World, June 22,1888.

13. William Dean Howells, "Execution by Electricity," Harper's Weekly 32 (1888): 23. Puzzled by Howells's irony, one electrician wrote, "So far as I can make out from his language, he favors the use of electricity." Thomas D. Lockwood, "Electrical Killing," Electrical Engineer 7 (March 1888): 89-90. Howells had a good reason for expressing his opposition to the new method in such an indirect style. In 1887 he courageously criticized the conviction of innocent men for the Haymarket bombing and as a result became the target of harsh public criticism. See Kenneth S. Lynn, William Dean Howells: An American Life (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 288-97; Timothy L. Parrish, "Haymarket and Hazard: The Lonely Politics of William Dean Howells," Journal of American Culture 17 (Winter 1994): 23-32.

*Most of the documents in TAEM and TAEB also can be found on the Edison Papers Web site: http://edison.rutgers.edu. Bernstein, "The Damnable Alternating Current," Proceedings of the IEEE 64 (1976): 1339-43; Theodore Bernstein, "'A Grand Success': The First Legal Electrocution Was Fraught with Controversy Which Flared Between Edison and West­inghouse," IEEE Spectrum 10 (February 1973): 54-58; Thomas Metzger, Blood and Volts: Edison, Tesla, and the Electric Chair (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1996); Craig Brandon, The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1999); Arnold Beichman, "The First Electrocution," Commentary 35 (1963): 410-19; Roger Neustadter, "The 'Deadly Current': The Death Penalty in the Industrial Age," Journal of American Culture 12 (1989): 79-87; Paul A. David, "Heroes, Herds and Hysteresis in Technological History: Thomas Edison and 'The Battle of the Systems' Reconsidered," Industrial and Corporate Change 1 (1992): 129-80. Richard Moran, Executioner's Current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair (New York: Knopf, 2002), was published too late for consideration here.