Did you know…Morse Code was invented by a Painter?
Written by Gina Haider
That’s right! Prior to the invention of the Morse Code, the dots-and-dashes telegraph method allowed for the almost instantaneous receipt of long-distance messages. Samuel Morse was a well-known American painter, and several of his portraits are among the greatest produced in this country. They've also been displayed across the country.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born in 1791 in Charlestown, MA to a distinguished geographer and pastor, Jedidiah Morse. His parents gave in to his enthusiasm for art in 1810 and assisted him in moving to England to study with the American painter Washington Allston after he received his degree from Yale College (as it was known at the time), which was located in Connecticut. There, he developed his skills in the romanticized, grandly presented English "historical" painting style. When he later moved to New York City, he began as an itinerant painter and progressed to high-profile portrait paintings. He eventually started getting commissions to paint former U.S. presidents, and historical and political events related to them to be hung in the halls of Congress. His portraits were styled with the old-world romanticism that he learned in England and communicated poignant and remarkable likenesses of his subjects. Morse’s works are still among the best ever produced by an American artist.
In addition to painting, Morse also embraced daguerreotype, an early kind of photography, and dabbled in politics, running twice for governor of New York. He was deeply religious throughout his life, maintaining his orthodox Calvinist Christian values. Despite not being wealthy for the majority of his career, he preferred to mingle with the wealthy and well-educated aristocrats and favored the traditional European style of art.
Throughout the 1820s and 30s, Morse’s mainstay was his painting commissions and salary as an art teacher at what is today called New York University. Among the notable personalities and figureheads of the time, the commissioned portrait of his good friend, the French aristocrat turned American Revolutionary hero, the Marquis de Lafayette, was undoubtedly one of Morse’s most valued portraits. At this time, he was at the height of his career when he founded the National Academy of Design (1826), an organization meant to provide appreciation and recognition to American painters, where he served as president until 1845.
It’s believed that Samuel’s attention shifted away from art and towards inventing because of his wife’s death in 1825. While working on Lafayette's painting overseas and learning of her grave illness, Samuel set off for Connecticut, but arrived not only after her death, but also after her burial. It’s theorized that he then became committed to improving long-distance communications. Soon after his wife’s death, he returned to Europe, where he continued to study because of his increasingly strong interest in the growing idea of widespread use of electricity. There, he learned about Thomas Jackson's electromagnetic investigations, which inspired Morse to develop an electricity-based communication system. In 1837, he and his partner Alfred Vale began developing an electric telegraph using a large electromagnet. It culminated in the creation of a single-wire telegraph system, which enabled messages to be received across much longer distances at previously unheard-of speeds! A year later, they invented the ever-famous Morse Code, a system of dots and dashes. Although it was an immeasurable benefit to business and society, Morse failed to get congressional funding for a telegraph line to Europe, but in 1843, he finally created a 50-mile telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington, D.C.
The first official telegram sent via telegraph in 1844 was sent from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, MD, and was chosen from the Old Testament: “What hath God wrought?”
Many years of debate and legal issues about patent rights followed, but eventually ended in Morse’s favor in 1854 by the Supreme Court, which resulted in foreign countries’ paying royalties to him. By 1866, the telegraph system was transatlantic to England, and Morse was a wealthy man who gave generously to various causes. He also gave encouragement to up-and-coming artists whose work he liked. His philanthropic donations benefited Vassar College (which he also founded) and Yale, along with many religious organizations that mirrored his Puritan orthodox beliefs. Morse’s final years were spent with his big family, splitting his time between his estate on the Hudson River near Poughkeepsie, New York, and his brownstone in New York City.
In the decades that followed, innovations like the radio and telephone greatly reduced the significance of the telegraph and the Morse Code. The Morse Telegraph Club, which was founded in 1942, and the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., where his telegraph device from 1837 is on display, both safeguard the significance of Morse's achievements for future generations. A statue of him stands in Central Park, New York, and was dedicated on June 10, 1871, the first “Samuel Morse Day,” which was created by a group of Western Union employees who were made employable thanks to Morse’s inventions.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born in 1791 in Charlestown, MA to a distinguished geographer and pastor, Jedidiah Morse. His parents gave in to his enthusiasm for art in 1810 and assisted him in moving to England to study with the American painter Washington Allston after he received his degree from Yale College (as it was known at the time), which was located in Connecticut. There, he developed his skills in the romanticized, grandly presented English "historical" painting style. When he later moved to New York City, he began as an itinerant painter and progressed to high-profile portrait paintings. He eventually started getting commissions to paint former U.S. presidents, and historical and political events related to them to be hung in the halls of Congress. His portraits were styled with the old-world romanticism that he learned in England and communicated poignant and remarkable likenesses of his subjects. Morse’s works are still among the best ever produced by an American artist.
In addition to painting, Morse also embraced daguerreotype, an early kind of photography, and dabbled in politics, running twice for governor of New York. He was deeply religious throughout his life, maintaining his orthodox Calvinist Christian values. Despite not being wealthy for the majority of his career, he preferred to mingle with the wealthy and well-educated aristocrats and favored the traditional European style of art.
Throughout the 1820s and 30s, Morse’s mainstay was his painting commissions and salary as an art teacher at what is today called New York University. Among the notable personalities and figureheads of the time, the commissioned portrait of his good friend, the French aristocrat turned American Revolutionary hero, the Marquis de Lafayette, was undoubtedly one of Morse’s most valued portraits. At this time, he was at the height of his career when he founded the National Academy of Design (1826), an organization meant to provide appreciation and recognition to American painters, where he served as president until 1845.
It’s believed that Samuel’s attention shifted away from art and towards inventing because of his wife’s death in 1825. While working on Lafayette's painting overseas and learning of her grave illness, Samuel set off for Connecticut, but arrived not only after her death, but also after her burial. It’s theorized that he then became committed to improving long-distance communications. Soon after his wife’s death, he returned to Europe, where he continued to study because of his increasingly strong interest in the growing idea of widespread use of electricity. There, he learned about Thomas Jackson's electromagnetic investigations, which inspired Morse to develop an electricity-based communication system. In 1837, he and his partner Alfred Vale began developing an electric telegraph using a large electromagnet. It culminated in the creation of a single-wire telegraph system, which enabled messages to be received across much longer distances at previously unheard-of speeds! A year later, they invented the ever-famous Morse Code, a system of dots and dashes. Although it was an immeasurable benefit to business and society, Morse failed to get congressional funding for a telegraph line to Europe, but in 1843, he finally created a 50-mile telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington, D.C.
The first official telegram sent via telegraph in 1844 was sent from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, MD, and was chosen from the Old Testament: “What hath God wrought?”
Many years of debate and legal issues about patent rights followed, but eventually ended in Morse’s favor in 1854 by the Supreme Court, which resulted in foreign countries’ paying royalties to him. By 1866, the telegraph system was transatlantic to England, and Morse was a wealthy man who gave generously to various causes. He also gave encouragement to up-and-coming artists whose work he liked. His philanthropic donations benefited Vassar College (which he also founded) and Yale, along with many religious organizations that mirrored his Puritan orthodox beliefs. Morse’s final years were spent with his big family, splitting his time between his estate on the Hudson River near Poughkeepsie, New York, and his brownstone in New York City.
In the decades that followed, innovations like the radio and telephone greatly reduced the significance of the telegraph and the Morse Code. The Morse Telegraph Club, which was founded in 1942, and the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., where his telegraph device from 1837 is on display, both safeguard the significance of Morse's achievements for future generations. A statue of him stands in Central Park, New York, and was dedicated on June 10, 1871, the first “Samuel Morse Day,” which was created by a group of Western Union employees who were made employable thanks to Morse’s inventions.