Electrocuting an Elephant

This film was produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company and depicts the execution of the elephant Topsy at Coney Island's Luna Park on January 5, 1903. It was registered for copyright by Thomas A. Edison on January 15, 1903, under the registration number H27083. Under the United States copyright law, all works published or registered before January 1, 1928, have entered the public domain due to the expiration of their copyright terms (the maximum duration allowed was 75 years under the 1976 Act, later extended, but these early works had already lapsed or reached the absolute cut-off). As a 1903 production, the film has been in the public domain for decades and is part of the Paper Print Collection at the Library of Congress.