Edison and the Electric Chair_ A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig [157]
19. Quotations from Arthur Kennelly to Alfred Southwick, September 15,1891 (the microfilmed version of this letter [TAEM 109:874] is largely indecipherable; for the somewhat more legible original, see Kennelly Letterbook #5, p. 263, ENHS); Southwick to Kennelly, September 21,1891 (TAEM 142:802). Edison's secretary provided the inventor with copies of the Kennelly-Southwick correspondence. See Alfred Tate to Edison, September 23,1891 (TAEM 142:801).
20. New York Herald, December 8, 1891. Also see the New York World, New York Sun, December 8,1891; MacDonald, "Infliction of the Death Penalty."
21. New York Herald, August 5, 1891, February 5,1892; New York World, February 8,1892; New York Times, January 6, February 9,1892.
22. Quotation from New York Sun, February 9,1892. Also see New York Herald, New York World, New York Times, February 9, 1892; Kennelly to Carlos MacDonald, February 3, 1892 (TAEM 109:968); Reynolds and Bernstein, "Edison and 'The Chair,'" 25-26.
23. Quotations from New York Herald, February 9, 1892.
24. New York Times, February 9, 1892. Edison had no comment, but Kennelly admitted the error in a brief paper about the execution: A. E. Kennelly, "Physiological Observations at the Mcllvaine \sic] Electrocution," Electrical Engineer 13 (February 17, 1892): 137-38. Also see W. J. Jenks, "Electrical Execution," New York. Medical Journal 33 (May 14, 1892): 542-44; Kennelly Notebook #6, p. 32, February 8, 1891 (TAEM 105:580).
25. On electrocution techniques, see A. E. Kennelly and Augustin H. Goelet, "Does Execution by Electricity, as Practiced in New York State, Produce Instantaneous, Painless and Absolute Death?—Observations Made at the Execution of David Hampton, at Sing Sing, Jan. 28, 1895," Electrical World 25 (February 16,1895): 197; for the next Auburn execution, see New York Herald, May 19, 1892. In August 1892 the electric chair at Clinton Prison in Dannemora was pressed into service for the first time, and proved reasonably successful: see New York Herald, August 3, 1892; "Electrical Execution," JAMA 19 (August 1892): 236. For coverage of later electrocutions, see, for example, New York Herald, January 21, 1897. For a list of executions, see Daniel Allen Hearn, Legal Executions in New York State: A Comprehensive Reference, 1639-1963 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1997): 81-91.
26. New York Herald, July 28, 29, 1893; J. W. Brown, "The Latest Electrocution," Medical Record 44 (August 12, 1893): 222-23. The controversy over this case revived two years later: New York Herald, July 23, August 2, 1895. For a similar controversy, see "A Ghastly View of Electrical Execution," New York Medical Journal 68 (October 1,1898): 487; W M. Hutchinson, "Electrical Execution," New York Medical Journal 68 (December 10,1898): 861.
27. Quotations from New York Herald, February 11, 1892; "Electrical Execution," 236. For other responses to electrocution in medical journals, see "Electrocution So-Called and Its Lesson," JAMA 15 (August 23, 1890): 290; MacDonald, "Infliction of the Death Penalty"; MacDonald and S. B. Ward to W. R. Brown, July 30, 1891, in Medico-Legal Journal 9 (1891-92): 167-73. On the attempt to return to hanging, see New York Sun, New York World, February 9, 1892; New York Herald, March 17, 1892; New York Times, March 31,1892. On poison and other scientific killing methods, see S. W Abbott, "Carbonic Oxide vs. Electricity," Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 121 (August 15, 1889): 171-72; M. S. Macy, "What Is the Proper Mode of Executing Criminals," Transactions of the Illinois State Medical Society 44 (1894): 526-32; Leonard S. Taylor, "The Humane Execution of Condemned Criminals," Chicago Medical Times 28 (1895): 323-24; "A Plea for Humane