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Howells worried not that electrocutions would be bungled but that they would proceed precisely as planned. In the image of a young child—with "the lightest pressure of the finger"—pushing a button to end a man's life, he captured the true terror of the electric chair: When killing is made scientific, when it is made easier, it becomes not less but more horrifying.13

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the issue of many long, largely happy days in the air-conditioned comfort of research libraries. I offer my profound gratitude to the staffs of the New York Public Library, New York Academy of Medicine, New-York Historical Society, Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, and the libraries of New York University, Cornell University, Columbia University, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Texas at Austin, and Rutgers University in New Brunswick. My thanks as well to the staffs of the Death Penalty Information Center, New York State Archives, the Prints Division of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cayuga County Historian, Chicago Historical Society, Clements Library at the University of Michigan, Harvard University Archives, Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Westinghouse Museum, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, Painted Post Historical Society, Ohio Historical Society, and the Barber Museum in Canal Winchester, Ohio. Elizabeth Ihrig of the Bakken Library and Museum photocopied and mailed important materials. Barbara Carr, the executive director of the Erie County SPCA, shared her desk, her thoughts, and the archives of her organization during a fascinating afternoon of research. Eileen McHugh, the executive director of the Cayuga Museum in Auburn, New York, answered questions about the prison and provided three photographs, including an extremely rare one of the first electric chair. Rob Cox, the manuscripts librarian of the American Philosophical Society, guided me through the Elihu Thomson Papers and located a portrait of Thomson therein. Judy Folkenberg of the National Library of Medicine helped identify and secure images. Dr. Scott Swank of the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry photocopied dozens of images of nineteenth-century dental chairs to satisfy my curiosity as to whether they might have inspired electric chair design (they did not).

Leonard DeGraaf, the archivist for the Edison National Historic Site, tracked down crucial documents and images and made beautiful high-resolution scans for me. Some of my research was rendered embarrassingly easy by the prodigious labors of the Thomas A. Edison Papers staff, who have made tens of thousands of documents accessible in books, on microfilm, and over the Internet (http://edison.rutgers.edu).

There is more to writing than research materials. The New York Public Library's glorious Rose Main Reading Room and its eccentric habitues provided, respectively, inspiration for and necessary distraction from my work. Bagel Bob's on University Place sustained me during mornings of writing; Thai Cafe and the Garden in Greenpoint fed me at night. For their warmth, sharp conversation, and willingness to go out for a drink or three, my thanks to Matt Abramovitz, Katherine Biers, C. A. Carlson, Andrew Cocke, Eddie Del Rosario, Trace Farrell, Cori Hayden, Juliet Hooker, Katherine Lieber, Karen Lillis, Elisa Slattery, Peter Tarr, and Howard Yoon.

Mark Baumann and Leah Shafer masterfully handled a great deal of scanning. C. A. Carlson and Peter Tarr read multiple drafts, serving as sounding boards and unpaid but extravagantly appreciated editors. Peter Dear, John Essig, David Essig-Beatty, Mary Essig-Beatty, Juliet Hooker, Jenna Land, Larry Moore, and Lauris Moore read the manuscript (or parts thereof) and saved me from errors of fact, infelicities of style, and narrative deviations. I hold them entirely responsible for what blunders may remain.

Paul Israel, director and editor of the Thomas A. Edison Papers and author of the definitive Edison biography, showed great generosity to a stranger by reading and