Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Technology Samuel Morse Samuel Morse Samuel Finley Breese Morse was born on April 27, 1791 in Charleston, Massachusetts. He was born into a wealthy family with two younger brothers named Sidney and Richard. His father, Jedidiah Morse was a minister, writer, geographer and a congregational clergyman. His mother was Elizabeth Ann Breese. When Samuel got older, he married a woman named Lucrece. Together they had three children, Susan (the oldest), Charles (the middle child), and Finley (the youngest) who was named after Samuel. Soon after having Finley, Lucrece died and Samuel later was remarried to one of his cousins. She was only twenty-six years old but he married her because she was deaf and dumb so he felt she could be dependent on him. Morse’s family grew with several more children. When Samuel was eight years old, he attended Phillip’s Academy in Andover, Massachusetts where his father was a trustee. Samuel was an unsteady student that was always getting in trouble for drawing and not paying attention. In 1805 he entered Yale College and graduated in 1810. Soon after, he convinced his parents to send him to London to study painting. He lived in England from 1811 to 1815 getting into Royal Academy in 1813. Samuel first began working after he graduated from Yale College as a clerk for Boston book publisher. Another job he had was painting which he studied in the U.S. and in Europe. He opened a studio to paint portraits, but was not very successful. People would go to his studio to look at his artwork but not to buy it. Soon after, he went from house to house asking people if they wanted their portrait painted for $15 but he was not successful in this either. Later in his life, he taught art at the University of the City of New York. He also ran for mayor of New York several times but always lost. Samuel Morse contributed many things to American society. In 1832 when returning from Europe from a period of art study on the ship Sully, Samuel overheard a conversation 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 age, he became a philanthropist. He gave generously to Vassar College, where he was a founder and a trustee, his Alma Mater, Yale College, churches, theological seminaries, bible societies, mission societies, temperance societies and to poor artists. He also founded the National Academy of Design, which increased respect for painters. I think that by inventing the electric telegraph and the system of Morse Code, he helped other inventors to later invent the telephone, the radio and the television. Samuel Finley Breese Morse died on April 2, 1872 in New York City at the age of 81. Bibliography: Word Count: 769
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