''Electrocuting an Elephant'' (also known as ''Electrocution of an Elephant'') is a 1903 American
black-and-white
Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings.
Media
The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...
silent actuality short depicting the killing of the elephant
Topsy by
electrocution
Electrocution is death or severe injury caused by electric shock from electric current passing through the body. The word is derived from "electro" and "execution", but it is also used for accidental death.
The term "electrocution" was coined ...
at a
Coney Island
Coney Island is a neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the south and west, and Gravesend to ...
amusement park. It was produced by the
Edison film company (part of the
Edison Manufacturing Company
The Edison Manufacturing Company, originally registered as under the name of the United Edison Manufacturing Company and often known as simply the Edison Company, was organized by scientist / inventor and entrepreneur, Thomas A. Edison (1847–1 ...
) and is believed to have been shot by either
Edwin S. Porter or Jacob Blair Smith.
Background
This film documents the publicly announced killing of Topsy the elephant at the unfinished
Luna Park on
Coney Island
Coney Island is a neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the south and west, and Gravesend to ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
on January 4, 1903. The elephant had recently been acquired from Forepaugh Circus, where she had a reputation as a "bad" elephant, having killed a drunken spectator the previous year who burnt the tip of her trunk with a lit cigar. After several incidents at Luna Park (sometimes attributed to the actions of her handler, William "Whitey" Alt) the owners of Luna Park,
Frederic Thompson and
Elmer "Skip" Dundy, claimed they could no longer handle the elephant and announced they would hang Topsy in a public spectacle and charge admission. The
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing animal cruelty. Based in New York City since its inception in 1866, the organization's mission is "to provide effective mea ...
stepped in, questioning the idea of hanging an elephant as well as making a public spectacle out of the death of an animal. Thompson and Dundy cut the event back to invited guest and press only and agreed to use a surer method of strangling the elephant with large ropes tied to a steam powered winch. They also agreed they would use poison and electricity as well.
Synopsis
The 74-second film opens with Topsy being led past a crowd of people through an unfinished Luna Park to the execution spot, an island in the middle of a "
lagoon
A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...
" used for boat-rides, by elephant handler Carl Goliath.
The film cuts and an intervening hour and forty-five minutes are not recorded. During this unrecorded interval, Topsy refused to cross the bridge to the island forcing the park employees and Brooklyn Edison electricians to re-rig the strangling apparatus and electrical wiring to where Topsy stood. Topsy was also fed carrots laced with cyanide while copper-clad sandals connected to electric lines were strapped to her feet.
When the film camera restarts, Topsy is seen with the bridge over the lagoon and the original execution spot. Topsy tries to shake off one of the sandals and then stands still. At that point she stiffens as 6,600-
volt
The volt (symbol: V) is the unit of electric potential, Voltage#Galvani potential vs. electrochemical potential, electric potential difference (voltage), and electromotive force in the International System of Units, International System of Uni ...
s AC is applied to her body. Smoke rises from her feet as she topples to the ground. Right at the end of the film, the
noose
A noose is a loop at the end of a rope in which the knot tightens under load and can be loosened without untying the knot. The knot can be used to secure a rope to a post, pole, or animal but only where the end is in a position that the loop can ...
tied around Topsy's neck can be seen tightening.
Release
This was one of many short
actuality films by the Edison Manufacturing Company shot at Coney Island from 1897 on. It was released on January 17, 1903, 13 days after Topsy's death, to be viewed in Edison coin-operated
kinetoscope
The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that woul ...
s. It was described in the Edison catalog as:
''Electrocuting an Elephant'' does not seem to have been as popular as other Edison films from that period.
Place in history
The Edison company submitted the film to the Library of Congress as a "
paper print" (a photographic record of each frame of the film) for copyright purposes. This form of submission may have saved the film for posterity since most films and negatives of this period decayed or were destroyed over time. It may have been the first time a death was ever captured in a motion picture film.
The film fell into relative obscurity in the years after 1903, showing up as an out-of-context clip in the 1979 film ''
Mr. Mike's Mondo Video''. In 1991, documentary maker
Ric Burns made the film ''
Coney Island
Coney Island is a neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to the south and west, and Gravesend to ...
'' which included a segment recounting the death of Topsy, including clips from the film ''Electrocuting an Elephant''. The film was also used in a memorial arts piece to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Topsy's death created by New Orleans artist Lee Deigaard and exhibited at the
Coney Island USA museum. It allowed the public to view the film on a hand cranked
mutoscope
The Mutoscope is an early motion picture device, invented by W. K. L. Dickson and Herman Casler and granted to Herman Casler on November 5, 1895. Like Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, it did not project on a screen and provided viewing to only ...
while surrounded by hanging chains and standing on a copper plate.
War of the currents misconception
In popular culture, Thompson and Dundy's execution of Topsy has switched attribution, with narratives claiming the film depicts an anti-alternating current demonstration organized by
Thomas A. Edison during the
war of the currents
The war of the currents was a series of events surrounding the introduction of competing electric power transmission systems in the late 1880s and early 1890s. It grew out of two lighting systems developed in the late 1870s and early 1880s: arc l ...
waged against his competitor,
George Westinghouse
George Westinghouse Jr. (October 6, 1846 – March 12, 1914) was a prolific American inventor, engineer, and entrepreneurial industrialist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is best known for his creation of the railway air brake and for bei ...
. This is a popular misconception. Edison was never at Luna Park and the electrocution of Topsy took place 10 years after the war of the currents had already ended. Edison was, in fact, no longer attached to
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, incorporated in the New York (state), state of New York and headquartered in Boston.
Over the year ...
, which had formed from a merger between
Edison General Electric Company
Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...
and the
Thomson-Houston Electric Company
The Thomson-Houston Electric Company was a manufacturing company that was one of the precursors of General Electric.
History
The company began as the American Electric Company, founded by Elihu Thomson and Edwin Houston. In 1882, Charles Al ...
in 1892. By 1903, there was no longer motivation for Edison's production company to produce anti-alternating current propaganda. The use of alternating current for executions had already become standard practice.
See also
*
Mary, another "bad elephant" whose 1916 execution by hanging was a similar public spectacle
*
Edwin S. Porter filmography
References
External links
*
"January 4, 1903: Edison Fries an Elephant to Prove His Point"– ''
Wired
Wired may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976
* ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993
* ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017
* "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street''
* "Wired ...
'' article about Edison's "macabre form of a series of animal electrocutions using AC".
{{Edwin S. Porter
1903 films
1900s American films
1903 documentary films
1900s English-language films
American black-and-white films
American documentary films
American silent short films
Articles containing video clips
Documentary films about elephants
Edison Manufacturing Company films
Filmed deaths of animals
Films directed by Edwin S. Porter
Films set in Coney Island
Films shot in New York (state)
Silent documentary films
Surviving American silent films
Thomas Edison
English-language documentary films