Edison and the Electric Chair_ A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig [151]
CHAPTER l6. PRIDE AND REPUTATION
1. Quotation from Israel, Edison, 370. Also see Tate, Edison's Open Door, 234-36; Israel, Edison, 369-70.
2. JAMA 13 (Sept. 21,1889): 431.
3. Electrical Review 14 (June 8,1889): 5; Israel, Edison, 371.
4. New York Times, February 15,1890; A. D. Rockwell, "Discussion of Electrical Execution," JAMA 19 (September 24,1892): 363.
5. Quotations from Tate, Edison's Open Door, 164.
6. Quotations from Dickson and Dickson, Life and Inventions of Thomas Alva Edison, 330; New York Morning Sun, June 24, 1888 (TAEM 146:353; misdated as November 4, 1888 in TAEM). Also see James S. Evans, "Edison Regrets Electric Chair Was Ever Invented," New York American, February 10, 1905 (TAEM 221:289).
7. Quotations from Arthur Kennelly to C. F. MacDonald, June 5, 1889 (TAEM 109:311); New York Morning Sun, June 24,1888 (TAEM 146:353; misdated as November 4, 1888 in TAEM). Also see Brooklyn Citizen, November 4, 1888 (TAEM 25:580); New York Herald, September 29, 1889 (TAEM 146:534); Kennelly to W. H. Snell, September 24, 1888; Kennelly to Frederick Peterson, December 6, 1888 (TAEM 109:311, 174).
8. New York Evening Post, December 12, 1888; Kemmler Hearings, 652-53.
9. Carlson, Innovation as a Social Process, 284, n. 20; Israel, Edison, 326; Passer, Electrical Manufacturers, 171-73; Hughes, Networks of Power, 95-97; Electrical World 9 (January 29,1887): 51; Electrician 23 (May 23, 1890): 72.
10. Quotation from "Annual Convention of Edison Illuminating Companies," Electrical World 14 (August 24, 1889): 135-36.
11. Quotation from Edison to J. H. Herrick, October 30, 1889 (TAEM 139:825). Also see Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, Minutes of Seyni-Annual Meeting (New York, 1888), 120-21; "Explanation of Experiments Covered by Bills Rendered Edison General Electric Co.," May 14, 1890 (TAEM 130:679); W. J. Jenks to Edison, April 8, 22, 1889 (TAEM 126:259, 265); Francis Upton to Edison, May 28, 1888 (TAEM 123:36); Israel, Edison, 326-27.
12. Quotation from "Annual Convention of Edison Illuminating Companies," Electrical World 14 (August 24, 1889): 135-36. Also see Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, Minutes of Semi-Annual Meeting, 120-21.
13. Quotation from Edison to Mrs. C. F. Pond, August 22, 1882. Also see Mrs. C. F. Pond to Edison, August 17, 1882 (TAEM 60:491, 81:816). On Edison's fear of alternating current, see his testimony in Kemmler Hearings, 633-34; "Notes on Distribution of Alternating Current," 7-10; Neiv York Times, June 5,1882; Max Deri, "Alternating Currents and Their Practical Uses," Electrician and Electrical Engineer 3 (September 1886): 346-47.
14. New York World, October 20, 1889. Edison was probably quoting from Jacques Arsene d'Arsonval, "Electro-Physiology," Electrician 23 (August 30, 1889): 431-42. On d'Arsonval, see Rowbottom and Susskind, Electricity and Medicine, 120-40.
15. New York Times, December 27,1882.
16. Quotation from "Notes on Distribution of Alternating Current," 9. Also see Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 102.
17. Quotations from Millard, Edison and the Business of Innovation, 65; Joseph-son, Edison, 260.
18. See W. Bernard Carlson and A. J. Millard, "Defining Risk Within a Business Context: Thomas A. Edison, Elihu Thomson, and the a. c.-d. c. Controversy, 1885-1900," in The Social and Cultural Construction of Risk: Essays on Risk Selection and Perception, ed. Branden B. Johnson and Vincent T. Covello (Boston: Reidel, 1987).
19. Westinghouse appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1895 affirmed the decision of the lower court. Bright, Electric Lamp Industry, 92.
20. Quotation from S. B. Eaton to Edison, October 7, 1889 (TAEM 127:308).
21. Reynolds and Bernstein, "Edison and 'The Chair,'" 20-21.
22. New York. Times, September 3, 14, October 1, 9, 10, 1889; Sullivan, "From