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The Adams Electrical Company Trenton’s Industrial Heritage Included Rubber, Wire The Adams Rope, Ceramics, Electrical Company Cigars and Electric Chairs by Gordon Bond f you’ve ever driven up Route 29 into The Death Penalty Trenton, you’ve probably seen the huge The death penalty has been part of I neon letters attached to the Warren Street communal systems of justice for as long as Bridge as its trusses arch off to the left over the there have been written records of them. As Delaware River and on into Pennsylvania. Put might be expected, they are largely reserved up in 1935, they declare with an iconic, if for the most egregiously antisocial of acts: perhaps now-ironic pride: murder. That is, the intentional taking of human life not in justifiable self-defense or in TRENTON MAKES–THE WORLD TAKES a state-sanctioned war. Over the years, the list of eligible offenses has been expanded to These days, it might be easy to be puzzled cover a wider array of the sorts of things by such oversized bragging. But the slogan different societies have deemed as taboo reflects how much of the city’s history is behaviors. In cultures where systems of justice indeed steeped in industrial might. Its furnaces operate within perceived moral codes, often kept American troops supplied with iron prescribed by religion, the list has come to also during the Revolution and most people will be encompass sexual transgressions, from rape at least vaguely aware of the Roebling name. and incest to adultery and homosexuality. At its height, Trenton supplied the world with Political systems often incorporate the threat of such things as rubber, wire rope, ceramics and pain of death to protect themselves against even cigars. treason, military desertion or extreme But you might be surprised to learn that insubordination—and, it must be said, to get among the other things Trenton made for the rid of dissidents. world to take were electric chairs. For much of its history, there has often The Adams Electric Company • Gordon Bond • GardenStateLegacy.com Issue 12 • June 2011 been little practical distinction between advertising what would happen to anyone corporal punishment and capital—if the means else contemplating doing the same thing. of execution happen to make the condemned Growing apace with methods of capital suffer, so be it. Perhaps the most readily punishments was the moral debate over available example of this can be found as the whether vengeance really equaled justice. central iconography of Christianity— Certainly, there is some cathartic if the Crucifixion. Whether the grim satisfaction in seeing simple abstraction of a cross or someone guilty of a terrible a graphic representation of crime suffer for their deeds. Jesus Christ’s suffering, all Thought for what a are evocative of what victim or their family was a fairly common suffers easily weighs method of capital against sympathy for punishment for the the guilty. However, Roman Empire. While in indulging that not exclusive to the base desire, was the Romans and not society sanctioning it always involving a less “civilized”? cross, per se, all Executions were crucifixion is basically often seen by the affixing someone to a masses as much as structure and leaving entertainment as moral them to hang and die a lesson. It is also slow, painful death. While impossible to quantify perhaps most culturally- how many would-be embedded for the West, murderers were somehow however, crucifixion was deterred from going certainly not the only Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, by Marco down that path from slow, painful means Palmezzano (Uffizi, Florence), painting ca. 1490 fear of ending up used at the time of being put to death. We dispatching the condemned. Indeed, there is a still debate the value of such capital macabre, if rather creative, list of methods: punishment as a deterrent. burning at the stake, the breaking wheel, That such questions were also on the stoning, crushing, drawing and quartering, minds of people early on is reflected in the slow slicing, disemboweling, impalement, concept of “cruel and unusual punishment.” dismemberment. That exact phrase goes back at least as far as There were two points to such methods. the English Bill of Rights in 1689, and was One was to indeed punish someone. A quick likely percolating around for some time before. and easy death seemed too good for It would be echoed in the American Bill of someone guilty of murder or treason— Rights and the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. somehow lacking in a sense of “justice.” But Constitution: “Excessive bail shall not be the added bonus was that by doing it out in required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor the open, where the public could see not cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” only the execution itself but the resulting Of course, what exactly defined a corpse, it would be a pretty clear billboard punishment as “cruel and unusual” would be The Adams Electric Company • Gordon Bond • GardenStateLegacy.com Issue 12 • June 2011 left for the American courts to hash out. being executed by a squad of Roman auxiliary Anything that caused undue suffering, archers back in 228 AD. Firearms made it more humiliation or didn’t fit the crime was the basic likely that well-placed shots could bring death idea—but what about capital quickly enough to be punishment? Some argue it is humane, but here too, there in of itself “cruel and was always the risk of error. unusual” and should be Despite this, a firing squad abolished. But others argued was employed as late as that while the basic idea of 2010 in Utah when the the death penalty was sound, condemned requested it. It it was the means by which it has always been popular was carried out that needed with the military given the to be adjusted. The emotional ready availability of guns on distress between hearing the the battlefield. sentence and it being carried Hanging has been a out notwithstanding, the final longtime tool of the act of death should happen executioner to the point of as quickly and painlessly as becoming iconic. Still, it was possible—as “humane” as certainly as vulnerable to possible. human error as any other So began a quest for method. The basic idea of a more civilized, humane ways humane hanging is that the to execute the condemned. person drops quickly and Beheading has been an old the noose snaps the neck, means. A good sharp blade bringing death before the and an accurate swing can, condemned is aware it’s presumably, get the job done happening. But when it goes fast enough that the person wrong, it can be gruesome suffers little. Trouble was, indeed. Too short of a drop however, it was subject to Detail from a painting by Pisanello, and the condemned hangs human error or sloppiness. 1436–1438. there, thrashing about, even There are many examples of wetting themselves until multiple swings being required to the extreme they choked to death. Too long a drop and distress of the condemned. The guillotine was decapitation could result. Hardly the fast, invented in France as a means of mechanizing painless method that would meet the criteria the process and taking out some of the risk of against “cruel and unusual.” a botched execution. It worked well enough Nevertheless, it remained the primary that France was using it right up to when it means of execution in the United States right abolished the death penalty altogether in 1981. to the end of the 19th century, when a new Still, there were nagging stories—albeit technology seemed to bring an even more anecdotal—of severed heads exhibiting efficient method. It was against this backdrop movements that indicated even a perfect of an odd hybrid of inflicting death but seeking execution wasn’t as immediate as thought. a humane way of killing that a Trenton Firing squads go back to bows and electrician would find himself called upon to arrows—Saint Sebastian is usually depicted as design New Jersey’s own electric chair. The Adams Electric Company • Gordon Bond • GardenStateLegacy.com Issue 12 • June 2011 The Electric Chair only a matter of time before someone applied As the 20th century broke, it promised to be this new urbanity to making even the the new age of electricity. Coal-fueled steam distasteful task of execution more humane. had been at the chugging heart of the The story of how that came about tells, albeit industrial revolution in the 1800s and had perhaps a bit apocryphally, how in 1881 a produced wonders enough. But electricity— dentist from Buffalo, NY, Dr. Alfred Southwick, now there was something amazing! It had witnessed an inebriated man accidentally enthralled and taunted humanity since the first electrocute himself by touching a live electric hominid looked up in awe at a lightning storm. generator. It seemed to happen so quickly and The very idea of tapping into that raw power painlessly that it set the good doctor thinking. was even part of the American The tales maintain that, as a dentist, creation myth—Benjamin Franklin he designed a chair—as opposed and his kite remains part of our to a table or other format—because national iconography. As the that’s what he was used to. It was nation was increasingly wrapped built by Harold P. Brown and in a web of wires, practical Arthur Kennelly, both employees of electrical power began powering Thomas Edison—Kennelly was the all manner of new appliances or chief engineer at the West Orange improving old ones, offering to facility. Given Edison’s involvement remove the drudgery from with the development of practical everyday life.
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