Today marks Thomas Edison's birthday — 161 years ago, "the Wizard of Menlo Park" sprang forth from his mother's womb to overcome an "addled" childhood and claim over 1,093 U.S. patents for items as varied as the light bulb, the phonograph and, er, the concrete piano. How did he manage it all? Well, besides his stunning good looks (pictured left), he employed a dogged knack for invention, a mindless tolerance for pursuing trial-and-error experiments, and he wasn't afraid to let a little thing like a shower get in between him and finishing a project.
But I'll always choose to remember him for his aggressive marketing campaign during the "War of Currents" with Nikola Tesla, wherein he advocated for the benefits of direct current (DC) by electrocuting an elephant. Now that's how you win a format war (I hope you're taking notes, Sony/Blu-Ray).
In 1903, when Coney Island circus elephant Topsy was deemed a nuisance (she went berserk and killed three people, including an abusive trainer who tried to feed her lit cigarettes), her owners planned to have her executed via the traditional method of hanging (seems problematic, but whatevs). Edison, however, saw a chance to appease animal rights activists and create a gangbusters PR event by suggesting electrocution with DC. So they fed Topsy cyanide carrots and lit her up with 6,000 volts.
1,500 people attended the execution and Edison, pre-YouTuber that he was, filmed the whole thing. Check the gruesome vid after the jump:
I know, I know — It's like Saw IV with no sound. Even worse is the fact that Topsy arguably died for nothing, since Tesla's alternating current (AC) won out in the end for mass application.
But you can't argue with Edison's gruesome originality when it came to marketing for something he believed in. Hell, if you put him in charge of Britney's career, he'd have deflected everyone's attention away from the "mental illness" thing long ago with a tiger execution or something.
His only marketing stumble might have been campaigning for wide use of the term "Westinghoused" instead of "electrocuted." Turning a corporate name into a verb? I'm afraid it was just too soon, Edison.
Via Neat-O-Rama
Comments
Sean says:
I think you may have gotten it wrong -- wasn't Topsy actually dispatched with a jolt of AC current? Edison had been advocating DC since it was safer than AC (though less efficient to transport over a grid). Edison successfully lobbied for AC to be used in the electrocution. His PR goal was to imprint a connection between AC and deadliness on the public. Obviously, efficiency over safety won out in the end (surprise).
March 27, 2008 12:18 PM
Richard Green says:
Sean's got it right. Edison used his competitor's product [AC] to demonstrate its extreme danger. Wiring an adult elephant with 6,000 volts DC would be like hitting it with a neutrino.
Regards,
Either Hannes Alfven or
Werner Heisenberg
March 29, 2008 9:31 PM
Add a comment