Morse, Samuel Finley Breese (1791–1872)
The Morse telegraph and workable code was first demonstrated in 1844. When a message was received, a series of short or long dashes (‘dots’ and ‘dashes’) were recorded onto a moving strip of paper. The pattern of the dots and dashes could be interpreted using Morse's Alphabetical Code.
US inventor. In 1835 he produced an electric telegraph (see telegraphy), and in 1843 was granted $30,000 by Congress for an experimental line between Washington, DC, and Baltimore. With his assistant Alexander Bain (1810–1877) he invented the Morse code.
| Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts. After graduating from Yale 1810, he went to the UK and studied art at the Royal Academy in London. He returned to the USA 1815 and was first president of the National Academy of Design 1826–45, which he helped to found. He taught at New York University from 1832. |
| Between 1832 and 1836 he developed his idea that an electric current could be made to convey messages. The signal current would be sent in an intermittent coded pattern and would cause an electromagnet to attract intermittently to the same pattern on a piece of soft iron to which a pencil or pen would be attached and which in turn would make marks on a moving strip of paper. |
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