Jason Pickering
Samuel Finely Breese Morse was born on April 27th, 1791 in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He attended Yale University where he studied electricity. After graduating from Yale, he went to art school where he won a gold medal for one of his only sculpture. While continuing his career as an artist, he painted poets, presidents and even Marquis de Lafayette. He also founded the National Academy of Design in 1826. In the 4th century B.C., messages were “transported” by a line of men shouting to each other and passing the message down the line. After that, the “hydraulic” telegraph, which centered on the dubious practice of filling glass vases with water and a floating stick, then placing them strategically in a “readable” order. Also, smoke signals and mirrors reflecting the sunlight were other forms of the telegraph. In the early 19th century, inventors experimented using electricity to transmit messages over wires. By 1832, Samuel was intrigued by the telegraph which was proposed in 1753 and which was then built in 1774. Until 1833, the devices were impractical, requiring 26 separate wires, on for each letter of the alphabet. The word “telegraph” originated in Greece, and the word “Tele” means distant, and “graphein” means to write. The very first message that was sent by Morse, on the top, said, “This sentence was written from Washington by me at the Baltimore terminal at 8h.45min on Friday, May 24th 1844, being the first ever transmitted from Washington to Baltimore by telegraph and was indited by my much loved friend Annie G. Ellensworth. Sam F.B. Morse Superintendent of Elec. Mag. Telegraph.” And on the bottom it said, “WHAT HATH GOD WO\ROUGHT?”
