Samuel Morse

What

How

WHy

Life

• He was born in Charlestown Mass., a suburb of Boston, in 1791.  
• He studied Philosophy and Mathematics at Yale.
• During his college years, he became interested in painting.  
• Later in life, he put his inventing skills to use improving the Telegraph.
• Morse, despite wanting to paint, was always fascinated with electricity.

Painting

• Samuel Morse's painting career began at a young age.
• He was known to sell portraits to his friends and classmates.
• He attended the Royal Academy of the Arts in London. 
• His painting career went against his father's wishes.
• To this day, his paintings are overshadowed by his work with the telegraph.

Love

• Morse married his first wife, Lucretia Walker, in 1818.
• Morse was commissioned to Washington D.C. to paint a portrait. 
• The portrait in particular was for Marquis De Lafayette. 
• He received a message while in Washington that his wife was ill.
• By the time he returned home, his wife was already dead. 

The Telegraph

• The despair from his wife's death was what resulted in the telegraph.
• Prior to his time, smoke signals and flag-based semaphore were used.
• (This was in addition to the even-slower postal system.)
• His telegraph used a series of dots and dashes to transmit messages.
• Many were amazed by how it could instantly send data great distances.

Morse Code

• Naturally, Morse needed a way to send data using only beeps and silence.
• His solution was a code representing every letter with only "." or "-"
• This was achieved by using them in combination. e.g, "C" is ".-.-"
• It was discovered that people could decipher the messages quite quickly.
• Some operators could key (send) over 30 words per minute.

Beyond the Telegraph

• Officials in D.C were impressed by the telegraph.
• They offered Morse money to build a line between Maryland and D.C
• When the line was completed, the first message was "What hath god wrought?"
• Shortly after, telegraph lines were being set up all around the country. 

Impact

• Morse died in 1872, after leaving his mark on the world
• He is responsible for major changes to long-distance communication.
• Without him, there would be no Morse code, and no telegraph.
• Telegraphs were unbelievably essential to the 1800's - even the Civil War. 
• Without the telegraph, who knows how we'd communicate over long distances?