Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death
| Date: 02 June 2011, 06:44
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Product Description: Thomas Edison stunned America in 1879 by unveiling a world-changing invention-the lightbulb. A decade later, despite having been an avowed opponent of the death penalty, Edison threw his laboratory resources and reputation behind the creation of a very different sort of device-the electric chair. Deftly exploring this startling chapter in American history, Edison & the Electric Chair delivers both a vivid portrait of a nation on the cusp of modernity and a provocative new examination of Edison himself.
Edison championed the electric chair for reasons that remain controversial to this day. In the 1880s, as he feverishly wired Manhattan and other cities with his revolutionary direct-current lines, his bitter rival, George Westinghouse, was undercutting his business with a less expensive alternating-current system.
As the battle for electrical dominance raged, a number of accidental electrocutions caused by alternating current caught the public's attention-none more graphic than the 1889 death of Western Union lineman John Feeks, whose corpse dangled for hours in a tangle of wires in lower Manhattan, to the horror of thousands of onlookers.
The debate over the safety of alternating current peaked just as New York's legislators were seeking a more humane alternative to the gallows. Called on for his expertise, Edison helped persuade state officials to reject the guillotine and lethal injection in favor of electricity. He conducted dramatic tests on animals to determine the deadliest formula and asserted that "it will be so lightning quick that the criminal can't suffer much." But there was a catch: Edison insisted that his own direct current was perfectly safe-only Westinghouse's alternating current could cause certain death in the electric chair.
Was Edison genuinely concerned about the suffering of the condemned? Was he waging a campaign to smear alternating current and boost his own system? Or was he warning the public of real dangers posed by the high-voltage alternating wires that looped above hundreds of America's streets? Plumbing the fascinating history of electricity, Edison & the Electric Chair brings to life an era when the public was mesmerized and terrified by an invisible force that produced blazing light, powered streetcars, carried telephone conversations-and killed. Mark Essig's colorful narrative is thick with surprising twists and vivid details-including Benjamin Franklin's slaughter of turkeys with static electricity, industrial espionage involving letters stolen from a locked office, experts who proposed execution by electric hut or table before settling on a chair, and the gripping story of hatchet-murderer William Kemmler, the first man to die in the electric chair.
With dark humor, original research, and dynamic prose, Edison & the Electric Chair explores America's love of technology and its fascination with violent death, opening a new window on a pivotal moment in American history.
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