Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Topsy

As George Westinghouse began promoting his new system for distributing electricity, Thomas Alva Edison took one look at the income he’d been receiving from his original direct-current patents, and mounted an extensive disinformation campaign on the dangers of alternating current, including the public electrocution of live animals. Even as late as 1903, upon hearing of the impending execution of Topsy the Elephant—who had killed her abusive trainer—Edison recommended electrocution and actually sent a crew to Coney Island to film the spectacle . . . for although he’d lost the War of Currents, he had a lot invested in the electric chair.

Part 2 is here.

Posted to Magpie Tales and ABC Wednesday.

17 comments:

  1. That made me ill. I never knew that about Edison. I have some choice words running in my head about what I think of him.

    That poor creature. : (

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  2. Oh how horrid....can it be true? oh yes ...experiments .....

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  3. There is fiction and then there is FICTION!!!

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  4. wow....i think i have heard of this before but your piece slammed it back to me!!! poor, poor topsy. :(

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  5. You certainly took this Magpie in an odd direction... :) Full marks for lateral thinking. LOL

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  6. @Trellissimo: the idea started out innocently enough. I thought of an elephant angel, and the story was supposed to end with the idea that even if Topsy had made it to heaven, it was doubtful that Edison would be so blessed, but by the time I got there that seemed rather trite and, besides, I'd exceeded my self-imposed 100-word limit.

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  7. I think there is a movie of the execution somewhere

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  8. Dear Kathy: I love your wry/dark chocolate humour. A George Westinghouse! hahah!

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  9. Disturbing, excellent, distinctive.

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  10. That really is distrubing...I hate that we have to use animals for testing....I guess I just want to believe it doesn't happen.

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  11. i'm sure the trainer deserved to be killed because of how abusive he was. elephants have been and still are abused horribly.


    verification makes it really hard to comment. you'd get more comments if you turned it off. i had to do this several times to get it to work.

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  12. what a TERRIBLE story
    ROG, ABC Wednesday team

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  13. Terrible, but true! And to think we make him out to be a hero!

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  14. Edison should have attached his own ass to the power source...This was all about the almighty buck.

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