Dr. Alfred P. Southwick, the dentist who advocated the electric chair, and who decided it would be a chair rather than a couch or bath.

Thomas Edison, the inventor who advocated alternating current for the electric chair.

George Westinghouse, the industrialist who opposed the development of the electric chair to preserve the reputation of his alternating current.

A horse is electrocuted in an early experiment by Harold Brown.

William Kemmler, the first victim of Old Sparky.

The electric chair in Sing Sing, New York.

The electric chair in Arkansas, used until 1948.

Topsy the Elephant was the biggest victim of execution by electricity. Although Thomas Edison filmed the execution, he had nothing else to do with it.

George Stinney, aged 14, was the youngest child sent to the chair. Accused by the State of South Carolina, he was later found to be innocent.

Ruth Snyder.

Allen Lee Davis was so obese that Florida had to make a new chair to accomodate him. The execution went badly wrong.

Ruth Snyder, photographed in her death throes with a hidden camera by Tom Howard of the New York Daily News.

Davis bled badly during the botched execution, leading to a temporary moratorium on electrocutions in Florida.

Charles Lindbergh and the prosecutor Norman Schwarzkopf during a break in the trial.

Bruno Richard Hauptmann, convicted of the kidnapping and murder of the baby son of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh.

Charles Lindbergh gives evidence at the trial of the century.

Mob hitman Abe Reles turned state witness, and brought down Murder Inc.

Louis Buchalter, mob hitman brought down by Abe Reles.

Louis Capone and Emaneul Weiss, executed together at Sing Sing.

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the couple who went to the electric chair for selling atomic bomb secrets to the Russians.

Charming serial killer Ted Bundy relaxing in court.

The original “rebel without a cause,” Charles Starkweather with his girlfriend Caril Fugate.

Robert Gleeson, who died shouting “Kiss my ass!” was the last man to die in Old Sparky.