The Palace of Death
SOLD March 2013 |
Cabinet-card format photo circa 1905 showing the Ohio Penitentiary electric chair and images of twenty-three murderers executed using it, several of them African-Americans. Imprinted front "O. P. Annex Souvenir. Photos made from life. Price 25 Cents." and on reverse with similar notations, a list of those executed, and their crimes, the last listed electrocution being that of Herman Hamilton on March 21, 1905.
The Ohio Penitentiary Annex and its electric chair seem to have been something of a period entertainment franchise, meeting with wide publicity. In 1908, H.M. Fogle published a lurid, copiously illustrated 278-page book describing fifty-nine murderers who met their end at the O. P. Annex, under the title "The Palace of Death."
