Morse, Samuel Finley Breeze

SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications

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Following early education at Phillips Academy, Andover, at the age of 14 years Morse went to Yale College, where he developed interests in painting and electricity. Upon graduating in 1810 he became a clerk to a Washington publisher and a pupil of Washington Allston, a well-known American painter. The following year he travelled to Europe and entered the London studio of another American artist, Benjamin West, successfully exhibiting at the Royal Academy as well as winning a prize and medal for his sculpture. Returning to Boston and finding little success as a "historical-style" painter, he built up a thriving portrait business, moving in 1818 to Charleston, South Carolina, where three years later he established the (now defunct) South Carolina Academy of Fine Arts. In 1825 he was back in New York, but following the death of his wife and both of his parents that year, he embarked on an extended tour of European art galleries. In 1832, on the boat back to America, he met Charles T.Jackson, who told him of the discovery of the electromagnet and fired his interest in telegraphy to the extent that Morse immediately began to make suggestions for electrical communications and, apparently, devised a form of printing telegraph. Although he returned to his painting and in 1835 was appointed the first Professor of the Literature of Art and Design at the University of New York City, he began to spend more and more time experimenting in telegraphy. In 1836 he invented a relay as a means of extending the cable distance over which telegraph signals could be sent. At this time he became acquainted with Alfred Vail, and the following year, when the US government published the requirements for a national telegraph service, they set out to produce a workable system, with finance provided by Vail's father (who, usefully, owned an ironworks). A patent was filed on 6 October 1837 and a successful demonstration using the so-called Morse code was given on 6 January 1838; the work was, in fact, almost certainly largely that of Vail. As a result of the demonstration a Bill was put forward to Congress for $30,000 for an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore. This was eventually passed and the line was completed, and on 24 May 1844 the first message, "What hath God wrought", was sent between the two cities. In the meantime Morse also worked on the insulation of submarine cables by means of pitch tar and indiarubber.

With success achieved, Morse offered his invention to the Government for $100,000, but this was declined, so the invention remained in private hands. To exploit it, Morse founded the Magnetic Telephone Company in 1845, amalgamating the following year with the telegraph company of a Henry O'Reilly to form Western Union. Having failed to obtain patents in Europe, he now found himself in litigation with others in the USA, but eventually, in 1854, the US Supreme Court decided in his favour and he soon became very wealthy. In 1857 a proposal was made for a telegraph service across the whole of the USA; this was completed in just over four months in 1861. Four years later work began on a link to Europe via Canada, Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and Russia, but it was abandoned with the completion of the transatlantic cable, a venture in which he also had some involvement. Showered with honours, Morse became a generous philanthropist in his later years. By 1883 the company he had created was worth $80 million and had a virtual monopoly in the USA.

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SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications

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Soemmerring appears to have been a distinguished anatomist and physiologist who in 1805 became a member of the Munich Academy of Sciences. Whilst experimenting with electric currents in acid solutions in 1809, he observed the bubbles of gases produced by the dissociation process. Using this effect at the receiver, he devised a telegraph consisting of twenty-six parallel wires (one for each letter of the alphabet) and was able to transmit messages over a distance of 2 miles (3 km), but the idea was not commercially viable. In 1812, with the help of Schilling, he experimented with soluble indiarubber as a possible cable insulator.

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See also: Morse, Samuel Finley Breeze

See also: INDEX BY SUBJECT AREA

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Alexanderson, Ernst Frederik Werner

Appleton, Sir Edward Victor

Armstrong, Edwin Howard

Ayrton, William Edward

Bain, Alexander

Bakewell, Frederick C.

Baudot, Jean-Maurice-Emile

Bell, Alexander Graham

Black, Harold Stephen

Blumlein, Alan Dower

Bourseul, Charles

Branly, Edouard Eugène

Braun, Karl Ferdinand

Bright, Sir Charles Tilston

Cady, Walter Guyton

Chappe, Claude

Clarke, Arthur Charles

Colpitts, Edwin Henry

Cooke, William Fothergill

Crampton, Thomas Russell

Cros, Hortensius Emile Charles

De Forest, Lee

Dunwoody, General Henry H.C.

Eccles, William Henry

Edison, Thomas Alva

Farnsworth, Philo Taylor

Fessenden, Reginald Aubrey

Field, Cyrus West

Gooch, Sir Daniel

Gray, Elisha

Halske, Johann Georg

Hartley, Ralph V.L.

Heaviside, Oliver

Henry, Joseph

Hertz, Heinrich Rudolph

Jansky, Karl Guthe

Kao, Charles Kuen

Keller, Arthur

Kennelly, Arthur Edwin

Kompfner, Rudolph

Lenoir, Jean Joseph Etienne

Lodge, Sir Oliver Joseph

Marconi, Marchese Guglielmo

Morse, Samuel Finley Breeze

Palmer, John

Pierce, John Robinson

Popov, Aleksandr Stepanovich

Poulsen, Valdemar

Preece, Sir William Henry

Reis, Philipp

Sarnoff, David

Shannon, Claude Elwood

Shockley, William Bradford

Siemens, Sir Charles William

Smith, Willoughby

Soemmerring, Samuel Thomas von

Steinheil, Carl August von

Strowger, Almon Brown

Taylor, Albert Hoyt

Thomson, Sir William

Tuve, Merle Antony

Vail, Alfred Lewis

Varian, Russell Harrison

Varian, Sigurd Fergus

Wheatstone, Sir Charles

Woods, Granville

Yagi, Hidetsugu

SUBJECT AREA: Telecommunications

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Chappe began his studies at the Collège de Joyeuse, Rouen, and completed them at La Flèche. He was educated for the church with the intention of becoming an Abbé Commendataire, but this title did not in fact require him to perform any religious duties. He became interested in natural science and amongst other activities he carried out experiments with electrically charged soap bubbles.

When the bénéfice was suppressed in 1781 he returned home and began to devise a system of telegraphic communication. With the help of his three brothers, particularly Abraham, and using an old idea, in 1790 he made a visual telegraph with suspended pendulums to relay coded messages over a distance of half a kilometre. Despite public suspicion and opposition, he presented the idea to the Assemblée Nationale on 22 May 1792. No doubt due to the influence of his brother, Ignace, a member of the Assemblée Nationale, the idea was favourably received, and on 1 April 1793 it was referred to the National Convention as being of military importance. As a result, Chappe was given the title of Telegraphy Engineer and commissioned to construct a semaphore (Gk. bearing a sign) link between Paris and Lille, a distance of some 240 km (150 miles), using twenty-two towers. Each station contained two telescopes for observing the adjacent towers, and each semaphore consisted of a central beam supporting two arms, whose positions gave nearly two hundred possible arrangements. Hence, by using a code book as a form of lookup table, Chappe was able to devise a code of over 8,000 words. The success of the system for communication during subsequent military conflicts resulted in him being commissioned to extend it with further links, a work that was continued by his brothers after his suicide during a period of illness and depression. Providing as it did an effective message speed of several thousand kilometres per hour, the system remained in use until the mid-nineteenth century, by which time the electric telegraph had become well established.

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See also: Morse, Samuel Finley Breeze