Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an
electric chair, is an execution method originating in the
United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and
electrocuted through
electrodes placed on the head and leg. This execution method, conceived in 1881 by a
Buffalo, New York dentist named
Alfred P. Southwick, was developed throughout the 1880s as a humane alternative to
hanging and first used in 1890. This execution method has been used in the
United States and, for a period of several decades, in the
Philippines (its first use there in 1924, last in 1976).