After several deaths were caused by the high voltages used in alternating current arc lighting systems in New York City, Brown came to prominence in June 1888, claiming in the press and then in public meetings that AC was more deadly than direct current (DC) and that the arc lighting companies were cutting corners and using AC to save money at the cost of public safety.

He also pushed to have the first electric chair, which was being developed by the state of New York, be powered with AC current, provided by Westinghouse generators he had surreptitiously acquired.

[5] After a series of deaths in New York caused by the tangle of pole mounted high voltage (up to 6,000 volts) alternating current lines Brown came to public prominence when he wrote a letter to the New York Post on June 5, 1888 describing the overhead lines as a public menace stating: The only excuse for the use of the fatal alternating current is that it saves the company operating it [AC] from spending a larger sum of money for the heavier copper wires which are required by the safe incandescent systems.

The legislation was unsuccessful but another bill to move AC lines underground in New York City, put forward before Brown's campaign, passed in 1889 after a further series of highly publicized deaths that year caused by alternating current.

At the same time that Brown was campaigning against alternating current a New York state bill replacing hanging with electrocution was signed into law (June 4, 1888) and set to go into effect on January 1, 1889.

Brown used alternating current for all of his tests on animals larger than a human, including 4 calves and a lame horse, all dispatched with 750 volts of AC.

[9] Based on these results the Medico-Legal Society recommended the use of 1,000-1,500 volts of alternating current for executions and newspapers noted the AC used was half the voltage used in the power lines over the streets of American cities.