The Electric Chair Was Invented to Ruin Thomas Edison's Rival
Quick Answer
Who invented the electric chair? The concept came from Alfred Southwick, a dentist in Buffalo who watched a man die touching an electrical generator and thought it looked peaceful. But the device was built and deployed by Harold P. Brown, an engineer working out of Thomas Edison's laboratory with Edison's full support. Edison championed the chair specifically because it used AC electricity, the technology of his rival George Westinghouse. The goal was to make the public associate AC power with death. It did not work. AC won the War of Currents anyway. The chair stayed.
Thomas Edison killed a lot of animals to win a business argument. Dogs, calves, a horse. Around 90 animals total, electrocuted in public demonstrations at his New Jersey laboratory. The point was not the animals. The point was making sure everyone knew which kind of electricity was doing the killing.
It was AC. It was always AC. That was the entire plan.
The business problem
By the late 1880s, Edison had a serious commercial problem. His entire empire, his patents, his power stations, his infrastructure investments, was built on direct current electricity. DC works fine at short distances. Over long distances, it loses power rapidly. You need a generating station every mile or so to keep it going. It doesn't scale.
George Westinghouse was selling alternating current, designed to Tesla's specifications. AC transmits efficiently over long distances. One generating station can power a city. Utilities were choosing Westinghouse. Edison was losing.
He needed AC to seem dangerous.
The engineer in the lab
Harold P. Brown was an electrical engineer who in 1888 began publishing pamphlets warning the public about the dangers of AC electricity. Edison gave him free access to the laboratory at West Orange, New Jersey. Brown began conducting experiments. He would strap dogs to a metal plate, run DC current through them to show it was survivable, then switch to AC and kill them. He did this in front of journalists and invited guests. He did it dozens of times.
Westinghouse refused to sell Brown any of his AC dynamos for the demonstrations. Brown got around this by purchasing secondhand Westinghouse generators through intermediaries who did not disclose the buyer. He also obtained a Westinghouse dynamo through a school that did not know what it was being used for.
The New York State legislature was simultaneously looking for a more humane execution method to replace hanging. Hanging, when done badly, was slow and ugly. Alfred Southwick, a Buffalo dentist who had watched a man die painlessly on an electrical generator a few years earlier, had been pushing for electrocution as a cleaner alternative. The state commissioned a study. Edison was consulted. He suggested AC electricity would be the most effective current for the purpose. He was helping design a killing machine built on his competitor's technology.
Edison also suggested that being executed by electric chair should be called "being Westinghoused." The term did not catch on.
The first execution
William Kemmler murdered his common-law wife with a hatchet in Buffalo in 1889. He was convicted and sentenced to death. He became the first person scheduled to be executed in the electric chair, at Auburn Prison in New York.
Westinghouse hired lawyers and tried to stop it. He said publicly that his company had nothing to do with the chair and that using his equipment for executions was an abuse of the technology. He spent considerable money on appeals on Kemmler's behalf, not out of sympathy for Kemmler but because he did not want his electricity's name on a death.
The appeals failed. On August 6, 1890, Kemmler was strapped into the chair.
The first jolt lasted seventeen seconds. When they stopped, Kemmler was still breathing. Witnesses reportedly told the warden to try again. The second jolt lasted more than a minute. By the end, the smell of burning flesh was in the room. Several witnesses had left. The attending physicians declared it a medical catastrophe.
Westinghouse's comment afterward: "They would have done better with an ax."
AC won anyway
The War of Currents ended at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Westinghouse won the contract to light the fair using AC electricity. Twelve million people attended. By 1895, a Westinghouse plant at Niagara Falls was transmitting AC power across New York State. The infrastructure question was settled. AC was cheaper, more efficient, and better suited to a country that size.
Edison's insistence on DC cost him his own company. He was pushed out of General Electric in 1892 as the company's investors concluded that AC was the future. His name stayed on the company for a while after he left. His technology did not.
The electric chair continued to be used in the United States for over a century. New York used it until 1963. The federal government used it until 1953. States including Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, and Virginia still offer it as an option. The device built to make Westinghouse's electricity look dangerous outlasted the argument it was built to win.
Brown's role in building the chair was documented in letters obtained by a reporter who found them in Edison's lab after Brown accidentally left them behind. Edison's direct involvement was harder to prove but well understood by everyone in the industry at the time. He gave Brown the lab, the resources, and the animals. He recommended AC for executions to the New York state commission. He coined a word for dying in the chair that named his competitor.
He later said he was opposed to capital punishment. He said this after AC had already won.
The Horrors Persist shirt is yours. The full horror collection is here. For the parallel story of a device proposed as humane reform that became something else entirely, the post on the guillotine covers the same structure. And for a company that also knew exactly what it was doing to the people around it, the Radium Girls post is the same story in a different industry.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who invented the electric chair?
The original idea came from Alfred Southwick, a dentist in Buffalo, New York, who witnessed a man die quickly and apparently painlessly after touching an electrical generator in the early 1880s. Southwick advocated for electrocution as a more humane execution method than hanging and lobbied the New York State legislature. The device itself was built by Harold P. Brown, an engineer working with Thomas Edison's backing and resources. Edison supported the chair specifically because it used AC electricity, the technology of his commercial rival George Westinghouse, hoping to associate AC power with death in the public mind.
Why did Edison support the electric chair?
Edison's business empire was built on direct current (DC) electricity, which loses power over distance and requires generating stations roughly every mile. His competitor George Westinghouse was selling alternating current (AC), which transmits efficiently over long distances. By the late 1880s, utilities were choosing Westinghouse and AC was winning commercially. Edison needed AC to seem dangerous. He gave engineer Harold P. Brown access to his laboratory, supported public demonstrations in which animals were electrocuted using AC, lobbied for AC to be used in the electric chair, and suggested that being executed in the chair should be called "being Westinghoused."
How did the first electric chair execution go?
The first execution by electric chair was William Kemmler at Auburn Prison in New York on August 6, 1890. It was not clean. The first jolt of electricity lasted seventeen seconds. When it stopped, Kemmler was still breathing. A second, longer jolt was applied for over a minute. Witnesses reported the smell of burning flesh and several left the room before it was finished. Westinghouse, whose AC equipment had been used without his knowledge or consent, commented afterward that "they would have done better with an ax."
Did Edison's plan work?
No. AC electricity won the War of Currents despite Edison's campaign. Westinghouse won the contract to power the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where twelve million people experienced AC-lit exhibitions without incident. By 1895, a Westinghouse plant at Niagara Falls was transmitting AC power across New York State. Edison was pushed out of General Electric in 1892. The electric chair continued to be used but it did not prevent AC from becoming the global standard for electrical power.
Did Westinghouse know his equipment was being used to build the electric chair?
No. Harold P. Brown tried to purchase Westinghouse dynamos directly and was refused. He then obtained Westinghouse generators by buying them secondhand through third parties who did not reveal the buyer. Westinghouse discovered the plan and spent significant money on legal appeals trying to stop William Kemmler's execution, not out of sympathy for Kemmler but to prevent his company's technology from being associated with capital punishment. The appeals failed.
Is the electric chair still used?
Yes. As of the mid-2020s, several US states including Alabama, South Carolina, and Virginia still offer the electric chair as an execution option. Most executions in the US use lethal injection, but the electric chair remains legally available in a small number of states, typically as an alternative if lethal injection drugs are unavailable or if the condemned requests it. The device built in 1889 to make AC electricity look dangerous has outlasted the argument it was designed to win by more than 130 years.
