Edison and the Electric Chair_ A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig [144]
13. Kemmler Hearings, 3-6; Harold Brown to Edison, December 29, 1879 (TAEM 50:483); Harold P. Brown folder, Edison Pioneers collection, ENHS; George Bliss to Edison, May 12,1888; Edison to George Bliss, May 21,1888 (TAEM 121:332,122:313).
14. New York Evening Post, June 5, 1888; reprinted in "The Admission of Alternating Currents into New York City," Electrical World 12 (July 28,1888): 40.
15. Quotations in this and the next paragraph from "The Admission of Alternating Currents into New York City," Electrical World 12 (July 28,1888): 40-46. The same meeting transcript was also reprinted as "High Potential Systems Before the Board of Electrical Control of New York City," Electrical Engineer 7 (August 1888): 360-69.
16. This may have been an unwitting description of cardiac defibrillation, but its effectiveness in 1888 would have been entirely accidental, since the principle of defibrillation was not discovered until the middle of the twentieth century. See Theodore Bernstein, "Theories of the Causes of Death from Electricity in the Late Nineteenth Century," Medical Instrumentation 9 (1975): 267-73.
17. Quotation from New York Evening Post, June 5, 1888. On theories of the greater dangers of alternating current, see New York Times, June 5,1882; Max Deri, "Alternating Currents and Their Practical Uses," Electrician and Electrical Engineer 3 (September 1886): 346-47; Edison, "Notes on Distribution of Alternating Current," memo to Edward Johnson, 1886, 7-10 (TAEM 148:3).
18. Quotation from Harold P. Brown, The Comparative Danger to Life of the Alternating and Continuous Currents (New York: n.p., 1889), 10.
19. See Peterson's obituary, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 88 (1938): 558-61.
20. Notebook N-88-06-06, pp. 74, 78-80, July 12,15,1888 (TAEM 102:529-35).
21. Ibid., pp. 78-80, July 17,1888 (TAEM 102:540-3).
22. Alfred O. Tate to Henry Bergh, May 2, 1888 (TAEM 122:288). Bergh's letter to Edison does not survive, but its contents can be inferred from the letter from Tate, Edison's secretary, who wrote to Bergh on the inventor's behalf. Also see Kennelly's testimony in Kemmler Hearings, 748-52.
23. Edison to Henry Bergh, July 13,1888 (TAEM 138:441).
24. Henry Bergh to Edison, July 14,1888 (TAEM 122:882); Edison to Bergh, July 21,1888 (TAEM 81:195).
25. Notebook N-88-06-10, pp. 31-32, 36-37, July 21 and 24, 1888 (TAEM 102:580-81, 584-87); Marshall, Recollections of Edison, 66; Harold P. Brown, "Experiments with Electric Currents on Dogs," Electrical World 12 (August 11,1888): 72-73.
26. Quotations from New York World, July 31, 1888. Also see New York Times, August 4, 1888; "Mr. Brown's Rejoinder," Electrical Engineer 7 (August 1888): 330, 369-70; "Physiological Tests with the Electric Currents," Electrical World 12 (August 11,1888): 69-72; Notebook N-88-06-10, p. 47 (TAEM 102:596).
27. New York Times, August 4, 1888; New York Morning Sun, August 4, 1888 (TAEM 146:292).
28. Electrician 22 (August 17,1888): 478.
29. Harold Brown to Arthur Kennelly, August 4, 1888 (TAEM 122:924); Kennelly to Frank Hastings, August 8, 1888 (TAEM 109:121-22). Also see Hastings to Kennelly, August 6, 8, 1888 (TAEM 123:67-69); Kennelly to Brown, August 9, 1888 (TAEM 109:123).
CHAPTER 12. "CRIMINAL ECONOMY"
1. "Mr. Brown and the Dog—a Ballad," Electrical Engineer 7 (August 1888): 375.
2. Sullivan, "From Municipal Ownership to Regulation," 122-25, x46, 490; "The Subway Fight of the United States Company," Electrical World 13 (January 12, 1889): 21-22; "Meeting of the Board of Electrical Control," Electrical World 13 (January 26,1889): 48; "New York Board of Electrical Control," Electrical World 13 (March 9, 1889): 149-50; "Meeting of the Board of Electrical Control," Electrical World 13 (March 16,1889): 164.
3. Quotation from Electrician 21 (October 5, 1888): 691. Also see Arthur Kennelly to Electrical Review, September 7, 1888 (TAEM 109:141); Kennelly to W H. Snell, September 24,1888 (TAEM 109:174).
4. Quotations from New York World, August 19,1888; Arthur Kennelly to New York World, August