Electric chair

: The term electric chair is sometimes used in publications by organizations of people with disabilities to mean "electric-powered wheelchair".

History

The first practical electric chair was invented by Harold P. Brown. Brown was an employee of Thomas Edison's hired for the purpose of researching electrocution and for the development of the electric chair. Since Brown worked for Edison, and Edison promoted Brown's work, the development of the electric chair is often erroneously credited to Edison himself. Brown's design was based on Alternating Current (AC), which was then just emerging as the rival to Edison's less transport-efficient Direct Current (DC), which was further along in commercial development. The decision to use AC was entirely driven by Edison's attempt to claim that AC was more lethal than DC.

Related Topics:
Harold P. Brown - Thomas Edison - Electrocution - Alternating Current (AC) - Direct Current (DC)

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New York State in 1886 established a committee to determine a new, more humane system of execution to replace hanging. Neither Edison nor Westinghouse wanted their electrical system to be chosen because they feared that consumers would not want in their homes the same type of electricity used to kill criminals.

Related Topics:
1886 - Hanging

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In order to prove that AC electricity was better for executions, Brown and Edison killed many animals, including a circus elephant, while testing out their prototypes. They also held executions of animals for the press in order to ensure that AC current was associated with electrocution. It was at these events that the term "electrocution" was coined. Most of their experiments were conducted at Edison's West Orange, New Jersey, laboratory in 1888.

Related Topics:
Elephant - West Orange, New Jersey - 1888

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The experiments apparently had their intended effects, and the AC electric chair was adopted by the committee in 1889. http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa102497.htm

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The first execution via the electric chair was carried out on William Kemmler in New York's Auburn Prison on August 6, 1890; the 'state electrician' was Edwin Davis. The first woman to be executed in the electric chair was Martha M. Place, executed at Sing Sing Prison on March 20, 1899. It was adopted by Ohio (1897), Massachusetts (1900), New Jersey (1906) and Virginia (1908), and it soon became the prevalent method of execution in the USA and remained so until the mid-1980s, despite the increased popularity of the gas chamber beginning in the 1950s.

Related Topics:
William Kemmler - August 6 - 1890 - Edwin Davis - Martha M. Place - Sing Sing - March 20 - 1899 - 1980s - Gas chamber - 1950s

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At the turn of the century, Charles Justice was a prison inmate in Columbus and helped build and install Ohio's only electric chair. He served his time, was released from prison, but returned to prison 13 years later and, on November 9, 1911, died in the same electric chair that he helped build.

Related Topics:
November 9 - 1911

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A record was set on a July night in 1929 when seven men were executed, one after another, in the electric chair at Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville. It was the largest mass electrocution in US history. In 1942 the same technique of criminals watching the others die, was used to execute the six German nazi war criminals captured by famous FBI agent J Edgar Hoover in the so called Quirin affair.

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Notable deaths by electric chair include Julius Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg, Ted Bundy, Giuseppe Zangara, and Leon Czolgosz.

Related Topics:
Julius Rosenberg - Ethel Rosenberg - Ted Bundy - Giuseppe Zangara - Leon Czolgosz

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On May 25, 1979, John Arthur Spenkelink became the first electrocuted person after the reinstatement of death penalty in USA in 1976.

Related Topics:
May 25 - 1979 - John Arthur Spenkelink - Death penalty - 1976

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The electric chair declined as legislators sought more humane methods of execution. Lethal injection became the most popular method, helped by newspaper accounts of botched electrocutions in the early 1980s.

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A number of states still allow the condemned man to choose between electrocution and lethal injection. Very occasionally, the condemned man does choose electrocution. The last use of the chair was in May 2004, when James Neil Tucker was electrocuted in South Carolina in what may be the last ever use of the electric chair.

Related Topics:
May 2004 - James Neil Tucker

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