While Nikola Tesla initially worked for Thomas Edison upon Tesla’s arrival in the United States in 1884, he eventually branched out on his own. In the early days of electricity, Edison’s DC model was the U.S. DC current is found in batteries and fuel cells. This form of electricity is best described in modern terms as a current that runs continually in a single direction. He is also known for developing direct-current (DC) electricity. The first practical incandescent light bulb and the phonograph are among Thomas Edison’s many inventions. Described as “ The War of Currents,” this competitive time in America’s history involved wealthy investors and a media war. Their race to develop an electrical system that would power the world centered around direct-current (DC) and alternating-current (AC). The film was Edison's "opportunity to demonstrate the deadliness of the damnable current on the largest of land animals,” he writes, “a creature so much bigger than any mere man, big enough to vent a great man’s fury and frustration at being bested, to show who is truly boss.” But it didn't matter. The War of the Currents had been lost, and Edison's opponents, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, had won.Īnd for Topsy, a member of a deeply intelligent and emotive species who was kept in captivity for so much of her life, Edison's feud couldn't have mattered less.Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla were two innovators who became entangled in a war of currents in the late 1800s. Topsy’s graphic death (which was filmed and is available on Youtube) did perhaps represent “the culmination of an intensively personal and private drama” for Edison, Daly writes. His presence isn’t mentioned in newspaper accounts of the execution, and none of Edison’s correspondence that can be found now mentions Topsy in any way. However, writes Rutgers, it’s unlikely that Edison was a direct part of Topsy’s execution or even saw it. Topsy was fed carrots laced with potassium cyanide, and her feet were placed in conductive copper sandals so she could be electrocuted. During the War of the Currents, Edison supporters-desperate to show that alternating current was much more dangerous than direct current-had electrocuted a number of animals: dogs, calves, even a horse.īecause nobody had ever electrocuted an elephant before, they decided to make sure the act would be completed with a combination of poisoning, strangulation and electrocution. Relying on information from previous animal electrocutions using alternating current, they decided electrocution would be a more humane way to kill Topsy. “But the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals objected, claiming that this method of execution was unnecessarily cruel.” “Luna Park originally planned to hang Topsy,” according to the Rutgers University introduction to the Edison papers. What Daly argues, she writes, is that the War of the Currents was well over by that time, and what had been proven is that Edison’s direct current was effective at killing animals.
“Topsy had, in fact, killed a man, but her execution was ordered only later, after she proved unmanageable at the hands of a trainer who savaged her with a pitchfork,” writes Vicki Constantine Croke in a review of Daly’s book for The New York Times.
He says Topsy was a victim of the “ elephant wars” between circus proprietors, not the War of the Currents. Barnum, and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison. Their ranks include Michael Daly, the author of Topsy: The Startling Story of the Crooked Tailed Elephant, P.T. After all, the War of the Currents ended in the 1890s, while Topsy’s death came later. “Captured on film by Thomas Edison, the event was one of a string of animal electrocutions Edison staged to discredit a new form of electricity: alternating current,” writes Tony Long for Wired.īut some disagree, saying that Topsy was destined to die anyways, and Edison’s electrocution was merely seen to be a convenient and humane way of accomplishing her death. Many believe Topsy was a victim of the so-called War of the Currents, the battle between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison over alternating and direct current. On this day in 1903, Topsy the elephant died of electrocution on Coney Island.
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