AC/DC

No, not that AC/DC, the electricity AC/DC. You know AC, alternating current and DC, direct current (whatever that means). The dictionary, as usual, doesn't shed much light on the subject: DC is “a current of constant direction,” whereas AC “reverses direction at regular intervals having a magnitude that varies continuously in,” now get this, “a sinusoidal manner.” I know just what they mean—I had an uncle who was arrested for doing godknowswhat in a sinusoidal manner.

Which sort of current would provide electricity to American homes and businesses (and the world): AC or DC? That was the question toward the end of the nineteenth century. The bitter, controversial and coldblooded battles that ensued—known at the time as the AC/DC wars, or the current wars—were front-page news (and for good reason).

The man at the center of the conflict was Thomas Alva Edison, “The Napoleon of Invention,” in an era called “the heroic age of invention.” Edison had already improved the telephone transmitter (transmitting “Mary Had A Little Lamb”) and the stock ticker and invented the phonograph and the incandescent light bulb. (Car batteries, electric vehicles, the first motion picture camera and the first movie to tell a story, “The Great Train Robbery,” were all in the future.) ¹ Eventually Edison held more patents than anyone (over a thousand).

Like all talented children though, Al did poorly in school—so poorly he had to be home-schooled. ² The year that he turned thirteen, he began to sell newspapers, and, unrelated to that, became deaf in one ear. ³ He married and had three children, twice.

Edison looked and acted the part of the folksy inventor. His clothes tended to be rumpled from naps on nearby worktables, and he always seemed to be smoking a cigar or chewing tobacco.

That was just one side of him though: He was also an ambitious, arrogant and ruthless businessman who, by the time of the AC/DC wars, had already built an empire that he would do anything to protect, if not expand.

His opponent in these “wars” was George Westinghouse, an equally unscrupulous inventor. Westinghouse created (and then manufactured) a railway breaking system and established the first electrical plant in Buffalo, New York. (If you haven’t guessed, it was the plant that made him Edison’s competitor and warmate.)

In war the first step is to choose a cause/side to defend/advance. Westinghouse chose AC; it was cheaper and capable of providing higher voltages and reliable service over a greater distance than DC. Edison staked his reputation on DC claiming that AC was too dangerous; it had already killed a number of innocent people. He wanted the American public to see just how lethal it was (so that he could have sole control of the soon-to-be-booming electrical industry). In 1887 he got his chance.

New York State had a plentiful supply of convicted criminals, and the Legislature thought it should shop around for a more humane way to kill them. It contacted ‘The Wizard of Menlo Park,’ where Edison’s “invention factory” was located, and asked for his opinion. Edison opposed capital punishment, and at first, he was reluctant to weigh in, but upon reflection, he decided that it was foolish to let something like principles stand in the way of revenge and a leg up.

AC, he assured the lawmakers, was the surest way to kill a human.

“The state’s consideration of adopting electricity for execution gave him an opportunity to point the inherent dangerous nature of competing technology.” 

Edison backed a New York engineer who began to execute large dogs in New York City lecture halls that were open to the public. One New York City official and onlooker stated: “It was one of the most frightful scenes I have ever witnessed. The dogs writhed and squirmed and gave vent to their agony in howls and piteous wails.”

Across the river in New Jersey, Edison was also doing some “research” of his own. He was paying local boys a quarter to find him stray dogs to “experiment on.” The boys responded so enthusiastically—you have to wonder about the working definition of ‘stray’—that the local pet population went down to zero, or at least, close to zero.

Some of Edison’s critics pointed out that killing a dog doesn’t prove that AC could kill a larger human, so he switched over to calves and horses. He even threatened to kill an elephant. Final stats: twenty-four dogs, six calves and two horses.

In late March 1889 William Kemmler (whose real name was John Hort) arrived home in a jealous drunken rage, began arguing with his wife, grabbed an ax and killed Mrs. Kemmler (who wasn’t really his wife; the two had left their spouses in back Philly and shuffled off to Buffalo with their daughter in tow). Kemmler then headed for the local tavern where he was arrested before he could finish his drink. He confessed; the jury found him guilty and sentenced him to be the first man to die by electricity. That was good news for Edison.

As a supposed authority, he told the papers that electrical current would result in a painless and instant death. (“Edison Says It Will Kill” the headlines ran.)

And Edison could hardly believe his good fortune: Kemmler was going to be executed by AC produced by a Westinghouse generator located right there in Buffalo! The gods seemed to be smiling on Edison—maybe even laughing with him. And the American public would figure it out soon enough: AC = DEATH. Better, even, than “got milk?”

“I am ready to die by electricity,” said the electric chair’s new poster boy, sounding proud to be the first man in history to die in an official state electrocution. Although the date was supposed to be a secret, word got out and on August 6, 1890, hundreds of spectators gathered outside the prison and watched from roofs of nearby buildings, the prison walls, the railroad platform across from the prison, and even treetops.

Inside Kemmler had his coffee and toast. The prison guards cut the hair on the top of his head short and slit his trousers in preparation for electrocution. He knelt and prayed before making his way down to the chair in the basement (1,000 feet away from the power source). Kemmler calmly asked the warden, whose hands were shaking, to take his time securing the eleven straps that would hold him down. (The warden’s evangelical wife, who had taught Kemmler how to read and where to find the lord, had left for the day.) The prison officials briefly discussed how long the current should be left on and agreed upon ten seconds. The warden put a leather Hannibal Lechter/Anthony Hopkins-type headpiece on Kemmler, and Kemmler moved his head to show that it was loose. Once that was straightened out, the warden threw the switch.

Kemmler’s mouth twisted as he jerked upright and strained mightily at the straps. Then he became rigid. After seventeen seconds he was declared dead. The only trouble was he wasn’t—dead, that is. His finger that he cut during the struggle was bleeding (pulsing blood, meaning his heart was beating), and his chest was heaving. His mouth began to foam, and saliva dripped from his mask. One of the twenty-four witnesses vomited and another screamed that they should just kill him already. One of the two reporters fainted. Kemmler began to shake and make ghastly rasping sounds. The warden reattached the electrodes and turned the electricity back on for no one knows how long. Kemmler’s hair was singed. His clothes were on fire. He had burned, finally, to death.


“Far Worse Than Hanging: Kemmler’s Death Proves an Awful Spectacle” pontificated the front page of the New York Times.

“I have merely glanced over an account of Kemmler’s death and it wasn’t pleasant reading,” Edison conceded. Westinghouse chimed in with: “They could have done it better with an ax.”

In l892 Edison’s company was bought out and renamed General Electric (soon to be bringing good things to life). A year later the city of Chicago chose Westinghouse’s AC to power its l893 Columbia Exposition, where the Ferris Wheel was introduced for the first time (See FERRIS WHEEL).

Though Edison no longer dominated the technological landscape, from where he stood, the AC/DC wars were far from over. Never one to accept defeat graciously, Edison was still looking for a way to stick it to Westinghouse. Perhaps one last dramatic demonstration would show the public just how lethal AC could be; and what could be more dramatic than making good on his threat to electrocute an elephant?

Like most late nineteenth century immigrant children who came to America, eight-year-old Topsy arrived with conflicted emotions. Billed as “the original baby elephant,” she learned to do some tricks but not the one where she arrests development. It wasn’t long before she had grown into a full-sized adult Indian elephant.

Topsy was no longer adorable and, perhaps affected by her traumatic first five years of life, she was no longer willing to be objectified by her trainers. She trampled the first two (killing the second just in case anyone thought the first “incident” was a fluke). Two years later she killed another trainer (apparently they didn’t ask for references) and earned herself a bad reputation (one of the earliest known instances of blaming the victim). A fourth trainer tried to teach her to eat a lit cigarette, but instead, Topsy taught him how to be lifted into the air by an elephant’s trunk and slammed into the ground (so hard that he never got up). Another, allegedly alcoholic, trainer rode Topsy down the main drag, where she tried to get into the local police station.

“Elephant Terrorizes Coney Island Police.; Big Animal Tried to Enter the Station House When Its Intoxicated Keeper Is Arrested.”

That was enough even for the craven circus owners who sold Topsy to Coney Island where she was put in charge of the heavy lifting (and where, soon, elephants would be forced to ride the park’s frolicsome water slide). Someone offered to buy Topsy’s body parts so long as she was killed first, and the amusement park’s management was only too happy to oblige, constructing a scaffold so they could hang her. The SPCA protested, and that was Edison’s cue: He graciously offered to electrocute her.

And what better place than Coney Island? Edison was looking for publicity, and Coney Island’s grand opening (in just a few months) would have full-tilt electrical lighting and ample press coverage.

So, on a gray, gloomy day in early January 1903 Coney Island workers reluctantly led Topsy, with a heavy rope around her head, to the hanging scaffold that had been converted into an electrocution platform. She wore copper sandals and some more ropes (to hold her in place while workers attached electrodes to two of her legs; lifting her legs on command was one of her circus tricks), and the workers fed her carrots stuffed with cyanide, just in case.

Approximately 1,500 off-season spectators watched (see LYNCH) 6,000 volts jolt Topsy to the ground, and the New York Times reported:

There was a bit of smoke for an instant. Topsy raised her trunk as if to protest, then shook, bent to her knees, fell and rolled over on her right side motionless. All this took a matter of ten seconds. There had been no sound and hardly a conscious movement of the body, outside the raising of the trunk when the current was first felt. In two minutes from the time of turning on the current (the veterinary in charge) pronounced Topsy dead.

Today you can go to Coney Island (what an advertising friend calls “Disney on Crack”) and visit the Topsy Memorial (which opened in 2003) in the Coney Island Museum on Surf Avenue in Brooklyn. ‘Memorial’ and ‘Museum’ should be taken with two grains of salt. Hole in the wall would be more appropriate. Just walk down the boardwalk, past the Shoot the Freak concession (where you can shoot paint balls at two scrambling midgets; five dollars gets you fifteen shots) and take a right.

Once inside, a woman will hand you a penny for the machine so that you can watch a film of Topsy’s electrocution (also posted below). You have Edison to thank for that: He had the foresight to have it filmed for posterity. Posterity, that’s us.

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¹  “I don’t think the talking pictures will ever be successful in the United States. Americans prefer silent drama…they will never get enthusiastic over any voices being mingled in.” –Edison

²  Edison’s mom called him Alva.

³  He was hard of hearing long before he became deaf; his loss of hearing was onset by frequent ear infections.

Bibliography

Baldwin, Neil; The Wizard of Menlo Park: How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World.

Beauchamp, Cari; Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years.

Bedau, Hugo Adam; The Death Penalty in America.

Conot, Robert; A Streak of Luck: The Life and Legend of Thomas Alva Edison.

Essig, Mark; Edison and the Electric Chair.

Jonnes, Jill; Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World.

Josephson, Matthew; Edison: A Biography.

New York Times; Coney Elephant Killed.

“I don’t think…” Beauchamp, 138

“The state’s…” Baldwin, 173

“It was one…” Jonnes, 193

“I am ready…” Jonnes, 205

“I have merely…” Jonnes, 213

“They could have done it…” Jonnes, 213

“There was a bit…” New York Times (Jan. 5 1903)