Throughout the twentieth century, America remained one of the few industrialized countries which carried out executions of criminals. Most trace this attitude to the Biblical roots of the country and the dictum of "eye for an eye" justice. Those who wished to abolish the death penalty saw the practice as bloodlust, a cruel and unusual punishment anachronistic in modern times. In the late 1990s, the issue remains a controversial one, with many states opting for the death penalty. In response and with an ironic twist, America has searched for ways to carry out executions as quickly and painlessly for the condemned as possible.

At the turn of the twentieth century, America was trying to shake a lingering sense of Old West vigilante justice. Thomas Edison, among others, had campaigned for the relatively humane death offered by electrocution. By the 1900s the electric chair had already become...