Encore: Electric Chair | A Matter of Light and Death | 3

American Innovations

Wondery

Steven Johnson, History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids, Science

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2021

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the summer of 1888, just as the electric chair controversy was unfolding, Nikola Tesla moved to Pittsburgh to work for George Westinghouse, fulfilling a year-long commitment he made when Westinghouse purchased Tesla’s AC motor patents.

The deal would make Tesla a millionaire, but it would ultimately threaten to topple Westinghouse’s business.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to American innovations, add free on Amazon music, download
0:06.0	the app today.
0:07.5	A listener note, this episode originally aired in 2019.
0:16.9	It's July 6, 1891.
0:20.2	Outside the gates of New York's Sing Sing Prison, some 50 reporters are standing under the
0:25.3	light of a new moon.
0:27.0	Tonight, four men are set to be executed.
0:30.4	James Locom, Harris Smiler, Shoshiyak Jojijo, and Joseph Wood.
0:36.0	Nearly a year after William Kemler's gruesome death, the chair will have its second trial.
0:41.6	Only this time, there will be no journalists allowed inside the prison.
0:45.6	Warden, W.R. Brown, wants none of the sensationalistic reporting that followed Kemler's execution.
0:52.0	For hours, he's kept the reporters at bay with a row of heavily armed guards outside
0:56.6	the prison gates.
0:57.6	Now, at 3 a.m., Warden Brown emerges from the building to address the crowd.
1:02.7	But listen up, there's a gag order on these executions.
1:06.6	That means no coverage.
1:08.1	I want you men on the other side of the highway, or I'll have my boys fill you full of
1:11.9	cold lead.
1:12.9	Hey, this is public property.
1:14.3	We have a right to be here.
1:15.8	Like how you do.
1:16.8	Get the dogs.
	...

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