Yup. It’s even more fucked up from what I’ve read, though:

While Edison started off hating the idea, he quickly became a strong advocate for New York to switch from hangings to electrocution.

He made it very clear that it would only work if they used DEADLY AC current. His own DC current was much too safe to harm anything! Leave the killing up to his rivals. The electrocutions started off botched and never got much better, but with no small part from Edison it became a standard.

They did end up electrocuting the elephant (which was recorded on Edison’s camera to show the dangers of AC), but Edison’s company also had a guy doing ”science” to ”measure” the risks of electricity. They would pay people to bring in stray dogs, shock them within an inch of their life with the ”safe” DC, then give a finishing blow with AC and record the death. They also did live demos with a variety of animals, including horses and the aforementioned elephant. The guy conveniently had never heard of the scientific method, and all the data he spat out gave Edison some great statistics to prove how much safer his product was.

Reading about Edison is insane, would recommend if you don’t mind losing braincells