Masters of Space / Morse and the Telegraph; Thompson and the Cable; Bell and the Telephone; Marconi and the Wireless Telegraph; Carty and the Wireless Telephone

by Walter Kellogg Towers

When he had completed this picture to his own satisfaction, he showed it to West. "Go on and finish it," was West's comment. "But it is finished," said Morse. "No, no. See here, and here, and here are places you can improve it." Morse went to work upon his painting again, only to meet the same comment when he again showed it to West. This happened again and again. When the youth had finally brought it to a point where West was convinced it was the very best Morse could do he had learned a lesson in thoroughness and painstaking attention to detail that he never forgot.

That he might have a model for his painting Morse had molded a figure of Hercules in clay. At the advice of West he entered the cast in a competition for a prize in sculpture, with the result that he received the prize and a gold medal for his work. He then plunged into the competition for a prize and medal offered by the Royal Academy for the best historical painting. His subject was, "The Judgment of Jupiter in the Case of Apollo, Marpessa, and Idas." Though he completed the picture to the satisfaction of West, Morse was not able to remain in London and enter it in the competition. The rules required that the artist be present in person if he was to receive the prize, but Morse was forced to return to America. He had been in England for four years—a year longer than had originally been planned for him—and he was out of funds, and his parents could support him no longer.

Morse lived in London during the War of 1812, but seems to have suffered no annoyance other than that of poverty, which the war intensified by raising the prices of food as well as his necessary artist's materials to an almost prohibitive figure. The last of the Napoleonic wars was also in progress. News of the battle of Waterloo reached London but a short time before Morse sailed for America. It required two days for the news to reach the English capital. The young American, whose inability to sell his paintings was driving him from London, was destined to devise a system which would have carried the great news to its destination within a few seconds.

But while he gained fame in America and secured praise and attention as he had in London, he found art no more profitable. He contrived to eke out an existence by painting an occasional portrait, going from town to town in New England for this purpose. He turned from art to invention for a time, joining with his brother in devising a fire-engine pump of an improved pattern. They secured a patent upon it, but could not sell it. He turned again to the life of a wandering painter of portraits. In 1818 he went to Charleston, South Carolina, at the invitation of his uncle. His portraits proved very popular and he was soon occupied with work at good prices. This prosperity enabled him to take unto himself a wife, and the same year he married Lucretia Walker, of Concord, New Hampshire.

After four years in the South Morse returned to the North, hoping that larger opportunities would now be ready for him. The result was again failure. He devoted his time to huge historical paintings, and the public would neither buy them nor pay to see them when they were exhibited. Another blow fell upon him in 1825 when his wife died. At last he began to secure more sitters for his portraits, though his larger works still failed. He assisted in the organization of the National Academy of Design and became its first president. In 1829 he again sailed for Europe to spend three years in study in the galleries of Paris and Rome. Still he failed to attain any real success in his chosen work. He had made many friends and done much worthy work, yet there is little probability that he would have attained lasting fame as an artist even though his energies had not been turned to other interests.

It was on the packet ship Sully, crossing the Atlantic from France, that Morse conceived the telegraph which was to prove the first great practical application of electricity. One noon as the passengers were gathered about the luncheon-table, a Dr. Charles T. Jackson, of Boston, exhibited an electro-magnet he had secured in Europe, and described certain electrical experiments he had seen while in Paris. He was asked concerning the speed of electricity through a wire, and replied that, according to Faraday, it was practically instantaneous. The discussion recalled to Morse his own collegiate studies in electricity, and he remarked that if the circuit were interrupted the current became visible, and that it occurred to him that these flashes might be used as a means of communication. The idea of using the current to carry messages became fixed in his mind, and he pondered, over it during the remaining weeks of the long, slow voyage.

Doctor Jackson claimed, after Morse had perfected and established his telegraph, that the idea had been his own, and that Morse had secured it from him on board the Sully. But Doctor Jackson was not a practical man who either could or did put any ideas he may have had to practical use. At the most he seems to have simply started Morse's mind along a new train of thought. The idea of using the current as a carrier of messages, though it was new to Morse, had occurred to others earlier, as we have seen. But at the very outset Morse set himself to find a means by which he might make the current not only signal the message, but actually record it. Before he landed from the Sully he had worked out sketches of a printing telegraph. In this the current actuated an electro-magnet on the end of which was a rod. This rod was to mark down dots and dashes on a moving tape of paper.

Thus was the idea born. Of course the telegraph was still far from an accomplished fact. Without the improved electro-magnets and the relay of Professor Henry, Morse had not yet even the basic ideas upon which a telegraph to operate over considerable distances could be constructed. But Morse was possessed of Yankee imagination and practical ability. He was possessed of a fair technical education for that day, and he eagerly set himself to attaining the means to accomplish his end. That he realized just what he sought is shown by his remark to the captain of the Sully when he landed at New York. "Well, Captain," he remarked, "should you hear of the telegraph one of these days as the wonder of the world, remember that the discovery was made on board the good ship Sully."

With the notion of using an electro-magnet as a receiver, an alphabet consisting of dots and dashes, and a complete faith in the practical possibilities of the whole, Morse went to work in deadly earnest. But poverty still beset him and it was necessary for him to devote most of his time to his paintings, that he might have food, shelter, and the means to buy materials with which to experiment. From 1832 to 1835 he was able to make but small progress. In the latter year he secured an appointment as professor of the literature of the arts of design in the newly established University of the City of New York. He soon had his crude apparatus set up in a room at the college and in 1835 was able to transmit messages. He now had a little more leisure and a little more money, but his opportunities were still far from what he would have desired. The principal aid which came to him at the university was from Professor Gale, a teacher of chemistry. Gale became greatly interested in Morse's apparatus, and was able to give him much practical assistance, becoming a partner in the enterprise. Morse knew little of the work of other experimenters in the field of electricity and Gale was able to tell Morse what had been learned by others. Particularly he brought to Morse's attention the discoveries of another American, Prof. Joseph Henry.

The electro-magnet which actuated the receiving instrument in the crude set in use by Morse in 1835 had but a few turns of thick wire. Professor Henry, by his experiments five years earlier, had demonstrated that many turns of small wire made the electro-magnet far more sensitive. Morse made this improvement in his own apparatus. In 1832 Henry had devised a telegraph very similar to that of Morse by which he signaled through a mile of wire. His receiving apparatus was an electro-magnet, the armature of which struck a bell. Thus the messages were read by sound, instead of being recorded on a moving strip of paper as by Morse's system. While Henry was possibly the ablest of American electricians at that time, he devoted himself entirely to science and made no effort to put his devices to practical use. Neither did he endeavor to profit by his inventions, for he secured no patents upon them.