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Harold Pitney Brown (August 27, 1869 -July 26, 1932 Malden, Massachusetts) was the American inventor of the electric chair
Electric chair

Execution by electrocution is an execution method originating in the United States in which the person being put to death is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electric shock through electrodes placed on the body....
. He was hired by Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph and the long-lasting, practical electric light bulb....
 to help develop the chair after he wrote an editorial to the New York Post
New York Post

The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continually as a daily, although -- like most other papers -- its publication has been interrupted by labor actions....
 describing how a young boy was killed after accidentally touching an exposed telegraph wire using alternating current
Alternating current

In alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. An electric charge would for instance move forward, then backward, then forward, then backward, over and over again....
.

At the time, Edison and his direct current
Direct current

Direct current is the unidirectional flow of electric charge. Direct current is produced by such sources as battery , thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of the dynamo type....
 system was competing
War of Currents

In the "War of Currents" era in the late 1880s, George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison became adversaries due to Edison's promotion of direct current for electric power distribution over alternating current advocated by Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla....
 with the Westinghouse electrical company, which used alternating current.






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Harold Pitney Brown (August 27, 1869 -July 26, 1932 Malden, Massachusetts) was the American inventor of the electric chair
Electric chair

Execution by electrocution is an execution method originating in the United States in which the person being put to death is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electric shock through electrodes placed on the body....
. He was hired by Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph and the long-lasting, practical electric light bulb....
 to help develop the chair after he wrote an editorial to the New York Post
New York Post

The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continually as a daily, although -- like most other papers -- its publication has been interrupted by labor actions....
 describing how a young boy was killed after accidentally touching an exposed telegraph wire using alternating current
Alternating current

In alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. An electric charge would for instance move forward, then backward, then forward, then backward, over and over again....
.

At the time, Edison and his direct current
Direct current

Direct current is the unidirectional flow of electric charge. Direct current is produced by such sources as battery , thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of the dynamo type....
 system was competing
War of Currents

In the "War of Currents" era in the late 1880s, George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison became adversaries due to Edison's promotion of direct current for electric power distribution over alternating current advocated by Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla....
 with the Westinghouse electrical company, which used alternating current. New York State in 1886 established a committee to determine a new, more humane system of execution to replace hanging
Hanging

Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", although it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain "hanging"....
. Neither Edison nor Westinghouse wanted their electrical system to be chosen because they feared that consumers would not want the same type of electricity used to kill criminals in their homes.

In order to prove that AC electricity was better for executions, Brown and Edison killed many animals, including a circus elephant
Topsy the Elephant

Topsy , was a domesticated elephant with the Adam Forepaugh at Coney Island Luna Park, New York City. Because she had killed three men in as many years , Topsy was deemed a threat to people by her owners and killed by electrocution on January 4, 1903....
 (Topsy), while testing 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
Electric shock

An electric shock can occur upon contact of a human's body with any source of voltage high enough to cause sufficient Electric current through the muscles or hair....
 was coined. Most of their experiments were conducted at Edison's West Orange, New Jersey
West Orange, New Jersey

West Orange is a Township in central Essex County, New Jersey, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 44,943....
 laboratory in 1888.

Though the campaign to discredit the alternating current system failed, the AC electric chair was adopted by the committee in 1889.

See also

  • Alfred P. Southwick
  • Efficiency Movement
    Efficiency Movement

    The Efficiency Movement was a major dimension of the Progressive Era in the United States. It flourished 1890-1932. Adherents argued that all aspects of the economy, society and government were riddled with waste and inefficiency....


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