Photo by Karolina Grabowska: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-man-at-the-dentists-6627413/
A dentist invented the electric chair. Alfred P. Southwick, a dentist from Buffalo, New York, was his name. After witnessing the slow and painful death of a convicted murderer who was executed by hanging, Southwick was inspired to invent the electric chair.
Southwick believed that using the electric chair would be a more humane method of execution. He collaborated with George Westinghouse, an electrician, to create a chair that would deliver a fatal electric shock to the victim. In 1890, the first electric chair was used to execute convicted murderer William Kemmler.
For many years, the electric chair was the primary method of execution in the United States.