The Electric Chair

<p> This book provides a history of the electric chair and analyzes its features its development and the manner of its use. Chapters cover the early conceptual stages as a humane alternative to hanging and the rivalry between Edison and Westinghouse that was one of the main forces in the chair's adoption as a mode of execution. Also presented are an account of the terrible first execution and a number of the subsequent gruesome employments of the chair. The text explores the changing attitudes toward the chair as state after state replaced it with lethal injection.</p>