January 6: General Interest

1838 : Morse demonstrates telegraph

On this day in 1838, Samuel Morse's telegraph system is demonstrated for the first time at the Speedwell
Iron Works in Morristown, New Jersey. The telegraph, a device which used electric impulses to transmit
encoded messages over a wire, would eventually revolutionize long-distance communication, reaching
the height of its popularity in the 1920s and 1930s.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born April 27, 1791, in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He attended Yale University, where he was interested in art, as well as electricity, still in its infancy at the time. After
college, Morse became a painter. In 1832, while sailing home from Europe, he heard about the newly
discovered electromagnet and came up with an idea for an electric telegraph. He had no idea that other
inventors were already at work on the concept.

Morse spent the next several years developing a prototype and took on two partners, Leonard Gale and
Alfred Vail, to help him. In 1838, he demonstrated his invention using Morse code, in which dots and dashes
represented letters and numbers. In 1843, Morse finally convinced a skeptical Congress
to fund the construction of the first telegraph line in the United States, from Washington, D.C., to
Baltimore. In May 1844, Morse sent the first official telegram over the line, with the message: "What hath
God wrought!"

Over the next few years, private companies, using Morse's patent, set up telegraph lines around the
Northeast. In 1851, the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company was founded; it
would later change its name to Western Union. In 1861, Western Union finished the first transcontinental line
across the United States. Five years later, the first successful permanent line across the Atlantic Ocean
was constructed and by the end of the century telegraph systems were in place in Africa, Asia and
Australia.

Because telegraph companies typically charged by the word, telegrams became known for their succinct
prose--whether they contained happy or sad news. The word "stop," which was free, was used in place of a
period, for which there was a charge. In 1933, Western Union introduced singing telegrams. During World War
II, Americans came to dread the sight of Western Union couriers because the military used telegrams to inform
families about soldiers' deaths.

Over the course of the 20th century, telegraph messages were largely replaced by cheap long-distance
phone service, faxes and email. Western Union delivered its final telegram in January 2006.

Samuel Morse died wealthy and famous in New York City on April 2, 1872, at age 80.