1-156-119 - Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

Execution by electric chair, United States, 1898. The warden holds a handkerchief in his left hand. The doctor holds his watch. The electrician stands facing the cupboard. He has on his finger a brass ring, fastened to the end of a wire, which communicates with the man standing in the box behind the electric chair, whose right hand is on the lever which permits the current to pass. Photographic illustration from Death by Electrocution by James S Metcalfe, (1898).