Electrical demonstration
Open-knowledge reference entry
Electrical demonstrations during the eighteenth century were performances by experimental philosophers before an audience to entertain with and teach about electricity. Such displays took place in British America as well across Europe. Their form varied from something similar to modern day carnival shows to grand displays in exhibition halls and theatres. With concern about safety of electrical power, these displays were sometimes pushed back upon.
History
Ebenezer Kinnersley
Ebenezer Kinnersley was one of the first showmen of electricity in British America, touring his electrical displays from 1749 to 1774. His lectures of electrical phenomena did not only show natural phenomena to the audience, but instead were interactive demonstrations that required their active participation. In Kinnersley's shows, audience members were able to have some embodied experience with electricity.
One of two Kinnersley's two touring electrical demonstrations focused on “the newly discovered electrical fire.” An audience member of this show would have the opportunity to directly interact with electricity in several different types of demonstrations. In one part of the show they could witness the attraction between positive and negative forces, using a leyden jar. In another, a charged coin would be placed in someone's mouth, then using an electrical discharge, Kinnersley would propel the coin across the room.
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This entry incorporates text from “Electrical demonstration” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.