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Edison and the Electric Chair_ A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig [147]

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electrical deaths as well—an even less appropriate usage considering that such deaths were not executions. Only purists continued to complain: "This barbarism jars the unhappy latinist's nerves much more cruelly than the operation denoted jars those of its victim," H. W. Fowler wrote in his classic Dictionary of Modern English Usage in 1930. Three decades later the editor of the volume's second edition conceded defeat in the matter of electrocution: "as it is established, protest is idle." H. W Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930), 130; H. W Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 2nd ed., revised by Ernest Gow-ers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 148. My thanks to Bill Gordy for bringing the Fowler references to my attention.

CHAPTER 13. CONDEMNED

1. Buffalo Express, May 8,1889.

2. Quotation from Buffalo Times, April 1,1889.

3. Quotations from Buffalo Express, May 7, March 30, 1889. Also see Buffalo Times, April 1,1889.

4. Quotations from Buffalo Times, May 8, 1889; Buffalo Evening News, May 7, 1889. Also see Buffalo Evening News, April 2, May 8,1889.

5. Quotations from Buffalo Courier, May 9, 1889; Buffalo Times, May 9, 1889; Buffalo Express, May 8,1889.

6. Quotation from Buffalo Evening News, May 10, 1889.

7. Quotations from ibid., May 7,15,1889.

8. Cockran later served three more terms in Congress; he also became a mentor to the young Winston Churchill: James H. Andrews, "Winston Churchill's Tammany Hall Mentor," New York History 71 (1990): 133-71. On Cockran's work for Cravath, see Robert T. Swaine, The Cravath Firm and Its Predecessors, 1819-1947 (New York: Ad Press, 1946), 588-89. Also see James McGurrin, Bourke Cockran: A Free Lance in American Politics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948), 94-95; New York. Herald, May 27,1889; New York World, June 6,1888.

9. Quotations from New York World, June 11,1889; New York Times, July 12,1889. Also see Buffalo Express, June 12,1889.

10. Quotations from James E. Browne to Edison, July 23,1888 (TAEM 122:909); Elihu Thomson to Charles Coffin, May 16, 1889, 1889 folder, series II, Thomson Papers. Also see Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 283.

11. Quotations from Elihu Thomson to F. P. Fish, May 6,1890, Letterbook vol. 41, p. 510, series IIA, Thomson Papers; Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 298.

12. Quotation from unidentified clipping, 1889 (TAEM 95:255). On patent disputes, see "Schedule of Suits Brought Against Light Company and Licensees," October 1,1888 (TAEM 123:86); Edison Lamp Co. to Edward Johnson, April 3,1889 (TAEM 95:848); "Patent Litigation Committee. Mr. Eaton's Mem. of Business for Meeting," October 14,1889 (TAEM 126:292).

13. "Consolidation of Electric Light Companies," Electrical Engineer 8 (February 1889): 74-75; Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 281-83; Bright, Electric Lamp Industry, 87-92; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 142-54; "Annual Convention of Edison Illuminating Companies," Electrical World 14 (August 24, 1889): 135-36; New York Tribune, February 17,1889.

14. Quotation from Edison to E. D. Adams, February 2, 1889, as quoted in Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 174.

15. "Annual Convention of Edison Illuminating Companies," Electrical World 14 (August 24, 1889): 135-36; Edison to Henry Villard, December 11, 1888 (TAEM 123:281); Israel, Edison, 321-23.

16. Quotation from New York Star, May 9,1889. Also see New York Daily Graphic, May 28, 1889; Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 8, 1889, 306. Harold Brown mentions the Leslie's article in a letter to Charles Coffin, June 3, 1889, reprinted in New York Sun, August 25,1889.

17. Quotations from Evening Post, May 14,1889, as quoted in Electrical Engineering 8 (June, 1889): 247.

18. Quotations from Medical Record 34 (November 24, 1888): 623; New York World, June 7,1889; New York Tribune, June 20,1889; New York Sun, July 17,1889. The views of several newspapers were quoted in the Buffalo Express, June 11, 1889. Although news articles in the World criticized the execution law (see June 6-11,19), the editorial

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