sation about the newly discovered electromagnets and came up with the idea of an electric telegraph. By 1835 he had his first telegraph model working in the New York University building. In 1837, he acquired two partners to help him develop his telegraph. Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail were the two men that he chose. They applied for a patent in 1837 for the telegraph, which included the dot and dash code. Throughout the next few years, he tried to find funds to test his telegraph on a large scale. No one believed that this device would work. Finally, in 1843 he got funds from Congress: $30,000, to construct the first telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. He sent a biblical quote as his first message: “What Hath God Wrought!”. The one contribution that is named after Morse is the system of dots and dashes called Morse Code. By coming up with different sequences of dots and dashes, which stood for letters, Morse enabled people to communicate more quickly using the electric telegraph. Morse quickly became an American hero. Companies started building telegraph lines to all parts of America. In 1866, a submarine cable linked Britain and America and before the turn of the century most of the world was covered with a network of Morse lines. Morse finally became wealthy due to his inventions of the electric telegraph and Morse Code. I feel that Samuel Morse had a major impact on American society. His invention of the telegraph and Morse Code created a new industry. Telegrams became a way of life for businesses and individuals. It created a revolution in world communications serving virtually every aspect of life including government, diplomacy, business, industry, railways, newspapers and military uses. As a result of this new industry, women were given the opportunity to have a respectable career outside of their homes as a telegrapher. As a result of becoming wealthy, Morse was able to give to his community. In his old ...
