History of The Electric Chair

The electric chair sizzled into history for the soul purpose of killing people. Many death devices came into being as an accident and just so happen to be used in that manner. The electric chair was proposed, created, developed, and used for the first time to destroy convicted killers. But how did such a heinous device come to be? Why would anyone want to create such an item? The electric chair was created to be a larger deterrent than hanging or a riffle squad, in addition to that it was believed it would kill a man quicker.

In the mid 1850’s, a gentleman and former warden named Harold T. Brown came up with the idea of a chair that you could strap a prisoner in and kill him. Harold contacted Thomas Edison, of light bulb fame and a million other inventions, He contacted Edison because Edison owned, operated, and worked the most popular and largest electric company in the country.(http://www.ccadp.org/electricchair.htm)

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Thomas Edison was enthralled by the idea and provided the know how, most of the parts, and all other electric devices to make Harold’s dream come true. However, when it was about to happen, there came to be a debate as to what kind of current should be used. The Westing House company, who believed Alternating Current (AC) was the only current that could be used, a thought directly against Edison’s, threw their hat into the electric chair “experiment”. Edison was of the opinion that Direct Current was the best and could be used to do anything. . The stage was set, and the new invention and the debate would be settled.

On August 6, 1890, William Kemmler, a convicted axe murderer, was brought into an underground bunker and strapped into Harold’s brain child. Because Edison was the wiser and more experienced, they shocked William for 5 minutes, and all he did was smoke; but he was very much alive. Devastated, Edison walked out. Upon his leaving, they switched the current to AC, and William was dead in 3 1/2 minutes. From that point on, AC and Westinghouse, was chosen as a far superior electricity and the Electric chair was born.(http://inventors.about.com/od/hstartinventions/a/Electric_Chair.htm)