War of Currents era

Main article: War of Currents

Extravagant displays of electric lights quickly became a feature of public events, as this picture from the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition shows.During the initial years of electricity distribution, Edison's DC was the standard for the United States, and Edison was not disposed to lose all his patent royalties. During the "War of Currents" era, Nikola Tesla and Edison became adversaries due to Edison's promotion of DC for electric power distribution over the more efficient alternating current (AC) advocated by Tesla, who patented AC in Graz, Austria. Edison (or, reportedly, one of his employees) employed the tactics of misusing Tesla's patents to construct the first electric chair for the state of New York to promote the idea that AC was deadly. Popular myth has it that Edison invented the electric chair, despite being against capital punishment, solely as a means of impressing the public that AC was more dangerous than DC. In fact, like most of the output of the Menlo Park operations, the chair was primarily invented by a few of his employees, in particular Harold P. Brown, while Edison supervised their operations. [3]

Edison went on to carry out a campaign to discredit and discourage the use of AC. Edison presided personally over several electrocutions of animals, primarily stray cats and dogs, for the benefit of the press to prove that his system of DC was safer than that of AC. Edison's demonstrations peaked with the electrocution of Topsy the Elephant.

Many of Edison's inventions using DC ultimately lost favor to AC devices proposed by others. AC distribution systems replaced DC, extending the range and improving the safety and efficiency of power distribution. Since the 1950s, high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission systems have become more common in certain situations.

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