Samuel Morse(1791 — 1872)
Samuel Morse
États-Unis
8 min read
American inventor and painter (1791–1872), Samuel Morse is famous for developing the electric telegraph and the code that bears his name. His invention revolutionized long-distance communications in the 19th century.
Famous Quotes
« What hath God wrought? — first official telegraphic message, May 24, 1844 »
Key Facts
- 1791: born in Charlestown, Massachusetts
- 1837: filing of the patent for the electric telegraph
- 1838: development of Morse code (dots and dashes)
- 1844: first telegraphic link between Washington and Baltimore
- 1872: died in New York, leaving a worldwide telegraph network as his legacy
Works & Achievements
Morse's landmark invention, developed with Alfred Vail and Leonard Gale: a device capable of transmitting coded electrical signals over long distances through a conducting wire. It revolutionized global communications and was adopted on every continent.
A system for encoding letters and numbers using combinations of dots and dashes (short and long signals). Designed with Alfred Vail, it became the worldwide standard for telegraphy and remained in use well into the twentieth century.
An imposing full-length portrait of the hero of the American Revolution, commissioned by the city of New York during Lafayette's visit to the United States. It is one of Morse's most celebrated paintings.
A large-scale painting depicting the walls of the Salon Carré in the Louvre covered with reproductions of European masterpieces. Morse worked on it during his stay in Paris with the aim of giving Americans a sweeping survey of the great painting tradition.
Construction of this 64-kilometer line, funded by the United States Congress, demonstrated the economic and social value of the telegraph and launched its large-scale deployment across the United States and the world.
Anecdotes
In 1825, Samuel Morse was in Washington painting the portrait of a dignitary when he received, several days after the fact, a letter announcing the death of his wife Lucretia. Devastated to have learned the news too late to say goodbye, he vowed to find a way to transmit information instantly over long distances. This personal grief was the true driving force behind his commitment to inventing the telegraph.
In 1832, during an Atlantic crossing aboard the ship Sully, Morse attended a demonstration on electromagnetism led by Dr. Charles Jackson. He spent the rest of the voyage filling his notebooks with diagrams and notes, laying the groundwork for what would become the electric telegraph. His fellow travelers would later recall seeing him scribbling frantically day and night.
On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse sent the first official telegraph message by wire from the Supreme Court in Washington to Baltimore, over 60 kilometers away. These words from the Bible — “What hath God wrought” — marked the beginning of a revolution in human communication and left the assembled crowd speechless.
To decide on the symbols for their code, Morse and his collaborator Alfred Vail visited a print shop and counted the number of type characters available for each letter. The most frequently used letters in English, such as E, received the shortest codes (a single dot), while rare ones like Q inherited the longest sequences. This purely empirical approach made the code both simple and remarkably effective.
Before becoming an inventor, Morse was a recognized and ambitious painter. He notably painted a large portrait of General Lafayette during the latter’s visit to the United States in 1825, now held in New York. For years he sought an official commission to decorate the Capitol, but faced repeated rejections — a bitterness that drove him all the more to dedicate himself to his scientific research.
Primary Sources
What hath God wrought. First message transmitted by telegraph from the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington to Baltimore.
I have sketched a plan for transmitting intelligence at a distance by means of electromagnetism. If this is feasible — and I see no reason why it should not be — it will change the way the world communicates.
Invention of a new and useful electromagnetic telegraph apparatus for transmitting intelligible signals at a distance by electrical impulses.
I affirm that I was the first to conceive and reduce to practice an electromagnetic telegraph capable of automatically recording signals received at a distance.
Key Places
Samuel Morse's birthplace, born on April 27, 1791. He grew up in a cultured and religious family that encouraged his education and intellectual curiosity.
Morse studied here from 1805 to 1810, developing an interest in both the arts and early lectures on electricity, which awakened his precocious scientific curiosity.
The city where Morse lived and worked as a professor of painting at New York University while developing his telegraph during the 1830s. He died there in 1872 and is honored by a statue in Central Park.
The starting point of the first commercial telegraph line in 1844. Morse sent the first historic message from the Supreme Court chamber to Baltimore.
The terminus of the first Washington–Baltimore telegraph line (1844). The 40-mile distance between the two cities served as the first successful large-scale test of the system.
Morse stayed here during the 1830s for his artistic training and attempted to patent his telegraph there. He met Louis Daguerre and developed an interest in the nascent art of photography.