The Tangled Tale of Topsy the Elephant

Yesterday marked the 97th anniversary of the electrocution of Topsy the elephant.

For those of you not familiar with Topsy's sad story...

Topsy was a domesticated elephant who, as a baby, was popular with children, but got into trouble later in life. Reports say that she, "killed two men in Texas and a third in Brooklyn borough after he had fed her a lighted cigaret."

Topsy was part of a circus at Coney Island's Luna Park and her owners decided that she should be put to sleep and that they could take advantage of the opportunity. They announced that she would be executed for murder and invited people to come see the spectacle.

The original plan seems to have been to hang Topsy, but either the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals objected, or Topsy wouldn't walk out onto the gallows, or both, so a new plan was required.

At the time, Thomas Edison was busy trying to get people to adopt his Direct Current (DC) as the standard for electricity by electrocuting animals using the rival Alternating Current (AC) advocated by Nicola Tesla and Westinghouse. Topsy's case must have seemed the perfect opportunity for Edison and he proposed execution by electrocution.

On January 4, 1903, Topsy was wired up, fed some poisoned carrots (just in case) and then had 6,600 volts of AC passed through her. Within seconds, as the Atlanta Constitution reported, "Topsy, the man-killer, was no more," but she became a national celebrity.

As many as 1,500 people witnessed the event and newspapers around the country reported it.

The Atlanta Constitution


San Francisco Chronicle


Chicago Tribune

To help with his campaign, Edison filmed the event and showed the film to audiences around the country. Today, Edison's movie is available on YouTube:

You can learn more about Topsy on Wikipedia, from this article at Wired, or from this interesting webpage about Coney Island's Luna Park. Those with a darker sense of humor may enjoy the blog Topsy: the Electrocuted Elephant.

Remembering the Gettysburg Address

Today is the 146th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.

This brief speech contains what may be Abraham Lincoln's most memorable mistake, "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here."

Here's my transcription of this early draft:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that "all men are created equal."

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us... that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

It's interesting to compare this with the address Lincoln gave (here's the version on the Lincoln Memorial) and see how he worked through the details.

Photos from the Coolidge Years

One of the fun things about Footnote is finding something interesting in a collection and then just getting lost in surrounding or related documents.

The other night, I got into the Calvin Coolidge photos and used the filmstrip at the bottom of the viewer to browse around.

The Coolidge photos were scanned from microfilm, which gives many of the images a striking, high contrast look which seems appropriate for this shot of Cecil B Demille working on his 1923 silent film, The Ten Commandments:

Cecil B Demille instructs Ramses (Charles de Rochefort) and Moses (Theodore Roberts)

Here are a few other interesting photos I came across.

A cheerful greeting from President Calvin Coolidge

Secretary of Agriculture Henry Cantwell Wallace in Chicago with "the champion canning club team"

President Coolidge as Chief Leading Eagle after being adopted as the first white chief of the Sioux Tribe

Major General James G Harbord and Brigadier General Charles G Dawes "deliver the goods" in Paris

Former President Coolidge, gone fishin'

Lizzie Borden

Today I came across this Footnote Page about Lizzie Borden by Edward1026 which brought back memories of my college days and a professor I had who was an expert on the case.

I took a few minutes to see what I could find in contemporary newspaper reports and a few minutes was enough to find...

An Aug 13, 1892 San Francisco Chronicle report of the arraignment of Lizzie Borden, "charging her with the homicide and murder" of her father and stepmother, complete with illustrations.

Here's a similar report from the Aug 13, 1892 Atlanta Constitution

Two days later the Constitution took a stand on the case. You don't see statements like, "New England criminal justice is stupid and barbarous," too often in news reports these days.

Here are reports of Lizzie Borden's acquittal from the San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune and Atlanta Constitution.

Can you find something interesting about Lizzie Borden on Footnote?

Life Publishes New Hemingway Photos

In 1952, Life magazine published a novella by Ernest Hemingway and wanted some pictures to accompany it. They sent Alfred Eisenstaedt to Cuba, where Hemingway was living, to get some pictures.

The novella, "The Old Man and the Sea" was one of Hemingway's last works and became one of his best known. The issue of Life that included it sold 5.3 million copies in 2 days and the story was required reading by the time I got to high school.

Most of Eisenstaedt's photos were not used in the magazine, but Life has posted the photos to their website.

Sounds like Hemingway made things tough for Eisenstaedt who "would refered "to the experience of shooting “Papa” Hemingway as his most difficult assignment ever."

The Court Marshall of George Armstrong Custer

From mid-September into October of 1867, a General Court Marshall was held at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for then Brevet Major-General George Armstrong Custer.

Custer faced two main charges:

1. Absence without leave from his command
2. Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline

Additional charges were brought against Custer for further prejudicing good order and military discipline by giving orders to pursue some supposed deserters and shoot them down without a trial.

You can read the proceedings of the trial starting here.

Here's a page from the testimony of one of the men that Custer instructed to "get on your horse and go after those deserters and shoot them down."

Custer provided a written defense which he said he had "sought to compress ... within the smallest possible compass and if it still seem long, it is because fewer words could no be employed to express what I believe to be a fair and temperate review of the evidence now before you." The written defense rambled for 45 pages.

The Court found Custer guilty on all charges and sentenced him, "to be suspended from rank and command for one year, and forfeit his pay proper for the same time."

In September of 1868, William T Sherman sent this telegraph asking for that Custer be reinstated because of a need for "active young field officers of cavalry":

Other interesting Custer related documents on Footnote include:

• A larger number of photos of Custer in the Brady Civil War photos collection. There may be more photos of Custer in the Brady collection than any other individual. It's interesting to watch his hair grow.
• An account of the "Scene of the Slaughter of Custer's Command" in the July 7, 1876 Chicago Tribune.
• A Civil War Pension Index card for Custer that gives his place of death as "Little Bighorn Riv., Mont.