Topsy the Elephant belonged to the Forepaugh Circus and spent the last years of her life at Coney Island's Luna Park. Because she killed one trainer (who burned her trunk with a lit cigar), and subsequently became aggressive towards two other keepers who had struck her with a pitchfork, Topsy was deemed a threat to people by her owners and killed by electrocution on January 4, 1903 at the age of 36.
Inventor Thomas Edison's employees oversaw and conducted the electrocution, and he captured the event on film. Edison used the film in his campaign against George Westinghouse and AC technology. Edison himself was not present at the electrocution.
Initially, Topsy was supposed to be hanged, but other ways were considered when the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals protested. Edison then suggested electrocution with alternating current, which had been used for the execution of humans since 1890. Topsy was fed carrots laced with 460 grams of potassium cyanide before the deadly current from a 6,600-volt AC source was sent coursing through her body, partly as a demonstration of how "unsafe" his competitor's (George Westinghouse) alternating current design was. The event was originally witnessed by an estimated 1,500 people.
Some background- Direct current is not easily converted to higher or lower voltages. Tesla believed that alternating current (or AC) was the solution to this problem. Alternating current reverses direction a certain number of times per second -- 60 in the U. S. -- and can be converted to different voltages relatively easily using a transformer. Edison tried to counter the increasing popularity of AC power with demonstrations of AC electrocuting animals and thus trying to prove the technology was unsafe. This short film just happens to be his most famous demonstration.
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. The submission may have saved the film for posterity, since most films and negatives of this period decayed or were destroyed over time.
On July 20, 2003, a memorial for Topsy was erected at the Coney Island Museum.
