Harold P. Brown and the Executioner's Current: an Incident in the AC-DC Controversy*

Thomas P. Hughes

Business History Review, 1958, vol. 32, issue 2, 143-165

Abstract: The Age of Electricity was foreshadowed by the “battle of the currents.” This almost forgotten controversy had important technological implications, but it is also a macabre chapter in the history of marketing tactics. Westinghouse's superior alternating current system was ingeniously attacked by proponents of direct current. Exploiting contemporary evidence from the penitentiary, the direct-current adherents declaimed against use by the public of a system employed by the state to rid itself of its most dangerous criminals.

Date: 1958
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