THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ELECTRIC CHAIR
The death penalty commission had reported back to the New York State Legislature, recommending electrocution as the most modern and humane method of executing prisoners. But how was it to be done? You could not ask convicts to urinate on live wires or to touch a non-insulated spot and hope for the best. Some mechanism was needed. The Legislature sought advice from the Medico-Legal Society of New York. The society’s chair was Dr. Frederick Peterson, who had assisted Harold Brown in his dog-killing experiments. So from the start he leaned towards AC. He contacted Brown.
The two men retired to Edison’s laboratory in West Orange and began to experiment in earnest on how to kill animals with AC. On November 15, 1888, they reported back to the society, and their report was honest. Either current would kill. But they said they would prefer to use AC. The society postponed a decision for a month.
Brown knew he had to pull off a spectacular stunt to ensure AC triumphed over DC and would become known as the killer current. So he decided to scale up his experiments, electrocuting, or “westinghousing,” large animals closer to humans in size. On December 5, he conducted a public demonstration before doctors, reporters, and two members of the New York State Death Commission, including the Buffalo dentist Dr. Southwick, long a proponent of electrocution. This time, Edison himself attended, lending the macabre proceedings a veneer of respectability.
They began by leading a calf onto a sheet of tin. The calf was cut on the forehead and the upper spine, and wet sponges were applied. Wires from the sponges ran via an alternator back to the tin base. After thirty seconds of applying 700 volts, the calf fell heavily to the floor, dead. A second calf took just five seconds to collapse. But this was merely the appetizer; the entrée was yet to come.
A large horse weighing 1,230 pounds was led forward. Copper wires were tied around its forelocks, and everyone stood back. If this went wrong, no one wanted a broken shoulder from the flailing hooves. When everyone was well clear of the animal, the current was turned up. As it reached 700 volts, the horse slumped forward to its knees and keeled over, dead. The following morning the New York Times proclaimed: “The experiments proved the alternating current to be the most deadly force known to science, and that less than half the pressure used in this city for electric lighting by this system is sufficient to cause instant death. After January 1, the alternating current will undoubtedly drive the hangman out of business in this State.”
A few days later the Medico-Legal Society gave their verdict: it was a thumbs up for AC. It recommended that prisoners be electrocuted in “a recumbent position, on a table covered with rubber, or the sitting position, in a chair especially constructed for the purpose.”
Brown and Peterson got to work immediately. Dr. Southwick was a dentist and was used to dealing with patients in a chair, so that is what he wanted. They began working on a chair that would electrocute someone to death quickly and with the least possible drama.
George Westinghouse was furious; he did not want his transmission system associated with killing prisoners. He fired off a letter to the newspapers, pointing out that many people had received shocks of 1,000 volts or more from AC and had not only survived, but had been uninjured. He accused Harold Brown of carrying out misleading experiments for publicity.
Brown responded by challenging the industrialist to an electric duel! He suggested that he be wired to a DC generator while Westinghouse was attached to an AC generator. Both men would be given an initial shock of 100 volts. Then the voltage would be increased in steps of 50 volts until one or other passed out or admitted that their system was more dangerous. It was getting preposterous.
Westinghouse wisely ignored the challenge and the duel of the currents never happened. But Brown was employed by the New York State prison system as their first electrical expert. He was officially the man who would build the first electric chair. It was a solid oak affair, with sturdy legs and arms with straps, so that a prisoner could be held in place. Most importantly, it would be connected to one of Westinghouse’s generators. It would be a spectacular PR coup. Criminality and AC linked in one very public death. Edison was delighted. Westinghouse was horrified.
Brown constructed and tested the apparatus until he was sure it would kill a human infallibly. Then he sold the chair and its accoutrements to the State of New York for $8,000. Old Sparky was ready for the first victim to be sacrificed to the progress of science.
Of course, it had not been a smooth development. For one thing, George Westinghouse refused to sell a generator to Brown. He might not have been able to prevent AC from being used, but he was under no obligation to help it. Eventually Brown had to turn to his benefactor Edison, writing in March 1889: “I have been trying for the past week to buy, borrow, or steal a Westinghouse dynamo, but have been unsuccessful. I am afraid therefore that we shall have to trespass again upon your good nature.”
He proposed that Edison modify one of the Siemens AC dynamos in the laboratory so that it could produce a continuous stream of 1,000 volts AC. Edison agreed and experimentation continued. After watching the progress, the state finally agreed that they would purchase three AC generators for $7,000, but only if the first execution went smoothly. The generators were for Sing Sing, Auburn, and Dannemora prisons.
At this point, Brown got a break. A competitor of Westinghouse’s, Charles Coffin of the Thomson-Houston Company, secretly agreed to acquire three second-hand generators and sell them to Brown. With the chair built and the generators secured, they were now ready for the first modern execution.