Execution on Display: Visitor Reactions to Texas’ Electric Chair

Abstract

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has the busiest execution chamber in the USA. Between 1924 and 1964, Texas executed 361 men. Since the end of the national death penalty moratorium in 1982, Texas has executed 528 men and women (Fernandez and Schwartz 2014; Texas Department of Criminal Justice 2015). Texas was also the first state in the USA to execute using lethal injection (Marquart et al. 1994: 137). Given this volume of executions performed in Texas as well as the current controversies over the method of lethal injection, interpreting representations of this practice are critical to understanding the dynamics of capital punishment. Located in Huntsville, the heart of the Texas prison system, the Texas Prison Museum is the only cultural site where the public can gain information about Texas executions and cast their own eyes on the electric chair, “Old Sparky.”