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54 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
54 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
From: twcaps@tennyson.lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
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Subject: The Edison Electric Chair?
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In article <76+pykg@rpi.edu> kasprj@operators.its.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak) writes:
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+ ObUL:
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+
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+ Tb. The electric chair as a method of execution was promoted by Thomas
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+ Edison, as an effort to show how dangerous AC power was.
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This was not exactly the case although there were elements of safety involved.
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Around 1886, the New York State Legislature set up a commission to check into
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"electrical" alternatives for executing criminals. A patent for the electric
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chair was filed by Harold Brown in New York State (son of a gun!) by 1887.
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At that time, Brown was working with the chief researcher at Edison's lab in
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Menlo Park, Dr. A.E. Kennelly. They tested it by zapping around fifty cats
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and dogs. Supposedly all were strays (yeah, right, where's the SPCA when you
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REALLY need 'em?).
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Anyway, the commission was skeptical and so Brown and co. fried a cow in
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their face. To drive the point home, he then fried a horse. New York
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Governor David Hill signed a bill making the electric chair a legal way to
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execute criminals on June 4, 1888. To convince officials and the public of
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the benefits of electrocution, Brown took his dog and pony show on the road.
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In Albany, he electrocuted an orangutan. In a scene predating Pepsi
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commercials by a hundred years, its hair caught fire.
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All was not well though. Northeast electric companies were opposed to
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electrocution as a means of death because it might spark further public
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fear of the dangers of electricity.
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At this time, Edison had been trying to sell the industry on his DC system
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for transmitting power. His rival, George Westinghouse, was pushing his
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"more efficient, reliable, and easier to transmit" AC system. The Chair
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worked on AC so Edison saw a means to try to scare the industry off of
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using Westinghouse's method and to this end, offered the use of his labs
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to Brown to perform experiments. At any rate, Edison lost out on this
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one and the industry adopted AC as a standard.
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So safety was involved, but Edison was more interested from a business
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motive rather than an altruistic one. Edison went on to have great
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fame (and unfavorable comparisons to Tesla on AFU). Westinghouse founded
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a company whose tradename in lamps is now owned by the Dutch.
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As it turns out, the use of the electric chair (esp. in the beginning)
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did show how dangerous AC current was to the successful and humane
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execution of criminals.
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The above is documented in _Panati's Extraordinary Endings of Practically
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Everything and Everybody_. ISBN: 0-06-096279-8.
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Terry "What's this switch for? Ouch!" Chan
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