Samuel Morse’s Device Connects the World

Samuel Morse’s Device Connects the World
Samuel Morse sends the first public telegram from the Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol, Washington to Baltimore, May 24, 1844. Morse sent the message 'What hath God Wrought?' Authenticated News/Getty Images
Trevor Phipps
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He made his living as an artist, but love for family led Samuel Morse (1791–1872) to invent a communication system that laid the groundwork for our lightning-speed technology today, when we have information at our fingertips.

Although raised in Charlestown, Massachusetts, Morse moved when he married and settled his growing family in New Haven, Connecticut. Painting was his passion and he worked hard to improve his skills.

His growing success as a portrait painter brought in commissions. He painted portraits of early American patriots, including John Adams and James Monroe. In 1825, Morse was sent to Washington to paint a portrait of the French military officer Marquis de Lafayette.

American painter and inventor Samuel Morse at the age of 59, 1850. (Archive Photos/Getty Images)
American painter and inventor Samuel Morse at the age of 59, 1850. Archive Photos/Getty Images

While working on Lafayette’s portrait, a courier delivered a message that his wife was ill after delivering their third child. He immediately set out on horseback to be at his wife’s side. Before he reached home, his beloved 25-year-old wife, Susan Walker Morse, had succumbed to her illness and had already been buried.

This heartbreak was the first of other personal losses that grieved him deeply. The next year his father passed away. Then, his mother died three years later.

In 1829, mired in unfathomable sadness, Morse traveled to Europe to rest and recover. There he contemplated his future. He used his time to think about a faster way to communicate, so important information could be sent and received in a timely way.

The Telegraph

After giving himself time to heal, Morse decided to return home in 1832. After he had settled himself back in the United States, he changed his career from painter to inventor. Soon, Morse met Charles Thomas Jackson, an inventor who taught Morse about electromagnets.

Morse and Jackson discussed how electronic impulses could travel through wires. Morse was immediately intrigued and made sketches of a device that might actually send messages: the single wire telegraph.

Original Samuel Morse telegraph. (Public Domain)
Original Samuel Morse telegraph. Public Domain

Morse developed the first single wire telegraph, but his device could only send messages short distances. He then started working with Leonard Gale, a professor at New York University, and the two were able to transmit messages over 10 miles.

Morse then partnered with inventor and machinist Alfred Vail. In 1838, they organized a public showing of their device: Morse sent a message over two miles without an additional power source. His first message said, “A patient waiter is no loser.”

Despite his success, Morse struggled with getting patents. A telegraphy device using several wires had been invented earlier, and many others were attempting to make a single wire telegraph around the same time as Morse.

Sean Trainor, in Time magazine, said this about Morse’s contribution: “[Morse] did more than any other figure, not only to enhance the device technically, but to secure funding for the technology’s early adoption, most notably from Congress. In 1844 Morse’s invention did impress Congress enough to fund his effort to build a telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. The first message over that line was: ‘What God Hath Wrought.’”

Morse Code

Morse and Vail also came up with a code of dots and dashes that could easily be transmitted by the telegraphic system. Vail helped Morse master the system in 1840 by figuring out the letters and when to pause to make words. This alphabetic code, consisting of dots and dashes (called “dits” and “dahs”), was demonstrated in 1844, and would become known as “Morse Code.”

The first model used electronic signals that made indentations of dots and dashes on a piece of paper. The people on the receiving end then found that they could translate the messages just by listening to the clicks of the electric current.

A Morse key, circa 1900, used to send messages via Morse Code. (Hp.Baumeler/CC BY-SA 4.0)
A Morse key, circa 1900, used to send messages via Morse Code. Hp.Baumeler/CC BY-SA 4.0

During the Civil War, reporters on the front could telegraph their reports to their newspapers in minutes. Morse’s system met the need for timely news, which foreshadowed the establishment of the Associated Press.

Although Morse Code and the telegraph are no longer used today, Morse’s telegraphy system paved the way for companies that made communication faster, such as Western Union, once the largest telegraph operator in the United States.

Today, we can communicate almost instantly using our computers to connect with friends and relatives, and we have a man who loved his family to thank.

Trevor Phipps
Trevor Phipps
Author
For about 20 years, Trevor Phipps worked in the restaurant industry as a chef, bartender, and manager until he decided to make a career change. For the last several years, he has been a freelance journalist specializing in crime, sports, and history.
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