The Telegraph
Invented in the early 1800s by Samuel B Morse, the telegraph was revolutionary in both its time and now our time.
Samuel Morse, with the help of Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail invented the telegraph together to revolutionize long distance communication.
Back in the ancient times of Greece, China, and Egypt long distance communication was marked by burning fires, beating drums, and sending smoke signals. Things like this, though developmental for their time, were impacted by things like weather and proximity. In the long run, it proved to be inefficient and was eventually phased out. Much like technology today, each time there is a new version of something we have, the old version is no longer. In with the new, out with the old, the saying goes.
Much like the old times, Samuel Morse decided to invent the telegraph because of a similar situation. Upon sailing from Europe to America he had heard a story of Sir William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone who developed a bit of a telegraph themselves. Their telegraph was equipped with five magnetic needles pointing to various letters and numbers in a circle and when electrical current was applied, the force made the needles dance. Their telegraph was used mainly in the British Railroad System in order to communicate between trains. However, this ignited the genius in Morse and he decided to play around with a similar idea.
Morse took the fascination of the information he heard while sailing and turned that into creating the first single circuit telegraph, with the help of Gale and Vale. The telegraph worked by pressing the operator key down to start the electrical current of a battery which traveled across a wire to the receiver at the other end. This revolutionized long distance communication as we know it because it allowed for reliable and safe transit of messages across distances as great as continents. In 1866, a wire was even laid down between America and Europe.
The impacts of the telegraph are endless, even today. Not only did we get a more reliable form of long distance communication, but that started the spark for inventors like Alexander Graham Bell to invent the telephone, or Alexander Bain to
invent the first fax machine. From the telegraph we got new technology, but we also got a new form of communication: Morse Code, which revolutionized the U.S. being able to win wars. The telegraph also got us better and faster news, almost instantly, as well as money wiring. Many of these things, including Morse Code, we still use today and newer inventions we have would not even be possible without the invention of the telegraph.
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