10 Shocking Facts About the Electric Chair

Since 1887, the electric chair has fascinated and horrified people around the world. The stiff, uninviting planks of wood the chairs are made of have become synonymous with the controversial method of execution.

Since its invention, the chair has continued to evolve, for better or worse. Here are 10 things you might not have known about the electric chair.

Related: 10 Strangest Judicial Punishments in History

10 The Youngest Person Killed by the Chair Was Only 14 Years Old

Only 5 feet (1.5 m) tall and less than 90 pounds (40.8 kg), George Stinney was sentenced to death for the murder of two local white girls in 1944. A fourteen-year-old Black boy, Stinney stood no chance against accusations from neighborhood adults. Though the only “proof” was that the girls had stopped at Stinney’s house to ask where to pick flowers, the boy was arrested and taken to jail.

After less than ten minutes of deliberation, an all-white jury declared Stinney guilty and sentenced him to death by electric chair. Because of his short stature and young age, it’s rumored that Stinney needed to stand on a pile of books to sit in the chair.

Seventy years later, Stinney’s conviction was vacated, as a court found that he was “fundamentally deprived of due process throughout the proceedings against him.” Stinney is not only the youngest person to be electrocuted in the chair but also the youngest person to be executed in the U.S. in the 20th century.^[1]

9 Andy Warhol Was Inspired by It

Perhaps the most influential artist of the 1960s, Andy Warhol, is known for his colorful photos of Marilyn Monroe, Campbell’s Soup cans, and… the electric chair?

In 1964, Warhol released a series of ten photos of the deadly furniture with different colors as part of his “Death and Disaster” series. The over-saturation of color and repetitiveness of the same image being shown repeatedly represented how, when hearing about the disasters and sad things happening in the world, we become desensitized to it.

Though it’s far from his most famous work, many Warhol experts agree that “Big Electric Chair” is a perfect example of the artist’s ability to critique America through photos.^[2]

8 A Wet Sponge Is Used to Conduct Currents

Anyone who’s seen The Green Mile knows that the wet sponge placed on top of the inmate’s head is important to the electrocution process. The saline-soaked sponge helps conduct the electricity move more quickly and more efficiently, killing the victim faster. Placing it directly on the inmate’s head allows the electricity to go straight to the brain rather than spread across the body. The quicker the brain is electrocuted, the faster death occurs, and pain is avoided.

While it’s not necessary, as even without the sponge, the electricity conducted would kill a man, it’s been used since 1890 as a way to ensure that the experience is over as quickly as possible.^[3]

7 Some People Survive It

Nothing is foolproof, and unfortunately, this even applies to execution. Stories of hangings leaving people with broken necks but still breathing, or bullets inducing comas that make people appear dead, have haunted the narrative for hundreds of years. As science and society have progressed, it seems only natural, so should our forms of capital punishment.

While the electric chair theoretically offers a quicker and less painful way of killing someone, there are multiple cases of people surviving the initial flip of the switch. The most famous example of this was in 1946. , Rather than dying, 17-year-old Willie Francis started screaming in pain after the “lethal” surge of electricity from the Louisiana State Penitentiary electric chair. Later, it was discovered that the prison guard who set it up had been drunk on the job.

As if being electrocuted alive wasn’t bad enough, Francis’s appeal to the Supreme Court was denied, and a few months later, the teenager was successfully killed by the same chair that had failed to do it the first time.^[4]

6 There’s More than One “Old Sparky”

If you asked the average person to name one electric chair, I can almost guarantee they’ll answer “Old Sparky.”

While it’s not technically wrong, they (and you) may be surprised to learn that Old Sparky isn’t just one chair but multiple. The state prisons of fourteen U.S. states refer to their local chairs by this nickname, while a few others call their infamous piece of furniture “Old Smokey.” The “sparky” comes from the sparking and crackling noises that sometimes occur during use. Not tactful, but it is catchy.

The first “Old Sparky” is probably also the most famous, stationed in New York’s Sing Sing Prison. In 1887, this was the first state to adopt the new form of capital punishment. All other electric chairs were modeled after this one, making the ensuing ones more like New Sparkies.^[5]

5 It’s Still Used in Some States

The electric chair is not just a scary reminder of the brutality of the Victorian Era. In eleven U.S. states, prisoners may still be electrocuted in the chair.

Arguments about the moral implications of capital punishment have been around for decades. Still, few methods spark (ha!) more controversy than this one. Electrocution is not the primary mode of execution in any state and may only be used if the inmate requests it.

In 2021, South Carolina passed a law forcing electrocution on prisoners if lethal injection was not available. This was eventually overturned, as a court decided the idea that the electric chair could painlessly kill someone was based on arcane information. It is “inconsistent with both the concepts of evolving standards of decency and the dignity of man,” as even if an inmate survived only fifteen or thirty seconds, he would suffer the experience of being burned alive. This punishment has long been recognized as manifestly cruel and unusual.^[6]

4 It Doesn’t Always Kill Instantly

At the time of invention, the electric chair was thought to be a more humane way of euthanasia. Though it’s strange to think that electrocuting someone could actually be a mercy, the other methods were worse.

Previously, hanging had been the most popular form of execution in the United States. Unfortunately, hangings were easy to botch, leading to painful and prolonged deaths. The gas chamber was considered “cruel and unusual,” and it was difficult to find qualified people to properly complete lethal injections.

Sadly, the electric chair did not always kill its victims right away. There are reports of people essentially being fried alive, with one 1990 case standing out. Alabama prisoner Horace F. Dunkins’s execution took a whopping nineteen minutes to kill him, with the man screaming in pain the whole time.^[7]

3 It’s Also Been Used in the Philippines

Even though the electric chair is associated with the United States, there’s one more country that adopted the form of euthanasia—the Philippines.

This came about in 1926, when the United States’ colonial Insular Government introduced it to the Asian territory, making it the only other country to ever use it. It was the primary form of euthanasia in the Philippines for fifty years until 1976, when it was replaced by lethal injection. During that time, 85 people were killed in the chair, one of whom was only 16 years old.^[8]

2 Thomas Edison Helped Fund Its Development—Not With Good Intent

At the turn of the century, no American scientist was more famous than Thomas Edison, inventor of the lightbulb (and more). His electric company was revolutionizing buildings and communities across the world, but he had some concerns. Around the same time Edison began pushing direct-current voltage (DC), rival inventor George Westinghouse was promoting his own “alternating-current voltage (AC).

When it became known that the electric chair was being developed, Edison suggested that AC be used. That’s right, Westinghouse’s current. Why? Well, it’s pretty sneaky. Edison knew that if AC became standard for the electric chair, it would convince America that AC was unsafe and a killer, while DC would become the safer alternative.

And it worked better than Edison could have ever hoped. At the first human execution, the inmate was not killed during the first round of electricity. He agonized for minutes, with witnesses watching on in horror. It became a media scandal, with Westinghouse0020himself claiming “they could have done a better job with an ax.”^[9]

1 It Was Invented by a Dentist

Even the bravest among us can probably admit they feel a flash of terror upon sitting in a dentist’s chair. Whether it’s the anxiety of telling the hygienist you haven’t flossed in a year or fear of a cavity, a trip to the dentist’s office is pretty much the opposite of being a kid in a candy store.

In 1881, Alfred Southwick furthered this scary stereotype by not only being a dentist, the most dreaded of careers, but also inventing the electric chair. To be fair to Southwick, it wasn’t out of malice. The opposite, in fact.

Southwick was a Quaker, a religious group that believes everyone is equal and deserves to be treated as such. After learning about a man who had died immediately upon touching a live electric generator, Southwick realized electricity could be used to create a more humane way of executing people. The idea of harnessing this electricity into a chair came from Southwick’s familiarity with performing procedures on patients in the dentist’s chairs.

So next time you get a root canal, just be thankful the chair you’re sitting in isn’t Old Sparky.^[10]