Instantaneous, long-distance communication has been easily accessible for my entire lifetime. Yes, long-distance calls were expensive in my early childhood, but for the majority of my life it has never been a hassle to communicate with friends and family all over the globe. Information has always been readily available to me. The first time western civilization was able to send and receive instantaneous messages occurred in 1837. Samuel Morse, an American artist and scientist truly changed the world. He is to attribute for the irreversible transformation of global trade and communication the phenomenal invention of the telegraph sparked (Driscoll, 2).
I learned about what is known as the earliest form of instant long-distance communication in James Gleick’s The Information earlier this semester. In sub-sahar Africa, drums are used to convey messages across many miles. “The drum language was at once formulaic and fluid. ‘The signals represented the tones of the syllables of conventional phrases of a traditional and highly poetic character,’” (Gleick, 15). The talking drums, as described in The Information by James Gleick, compose messages that are as full of extra information as possible. These sub-Saharan African drums are the first recorded form of code and language that is all rolled into one.
Europeans were astonished by this, as they had been trying to master instant long-distance communication for a very long time. The invention of the telegraph was almost discovered in 1827 by Harrison Gray, and then again in 1828 by Joseph Henry, but what both these scientists lacked was a battery, (Phalen, 2). Finally, in 1836, John Frederic Daniell invented the Daniell cell, a type of cell battery that solved the last piece of the telegraphic puzzle. This is where Samuel Morse comes into the story.
In 1832, Samuel Morse was aboard a ship travelling to New York. It was a discussion on this ship that sparked his curiosity regarding the telegraph. Morse thought, “If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of the circuit, I see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted instantaneously by electricity,” (Phalen, 5). Using the knowledge Morse had learned and gained from other scientists, he knew that the electric current along a wire could generate three signs: the presence of the current, the absence of the current, and the length of the absence from the current. It was aboard the ship headed to New York that Morse began to work out the beginning stages of the now famous Morse Code. The invention of the telegraph was miniscule compared to the invention of Morse Code, without this code, his invention would be useless. However, I’ve learned that Morse Code was originally considered an alphabet, “the Morse Telegraphic Alphabet,” (Gleick 152) even though it wasn’t technically an alphabet. Gleick clarifies that the alphabet was only invented once, and every alphabet stems from the same ancestor, which was discovered around 1500 BCE near the Mediterranean Sea (Gleick 33). The Morse Telegraphic Alphabet was “an alphabet once removed;” (Gleick 152) a code and a system. Morse code arose during an era in which iconography made its mark. Signs were being used in place of other symbols, symbols were being used in place of other signs. Gleick says that this happened for two reasons: secrecy and brevity (Gleick 152). I find it interesting, that, like early text messaging, people were billed for number of words. It wasn’t too long ago that text messages were confined to 140 characters, and each message cost the sender a fee. I remember a time when I got my first cell phone, in the sixth grade, and part of the deal was that my mom was allowed to read my text messages.
Therefore, I used coded names to gossip with my friends. Likewise, users of the telegraph, being a semi-public communications system (with the delivery person, telegraph operator, telegraphic translator, and delivery person on the other end, among others) devised many different systems of encoding their codes. Military and civilians alike devised strategies to keep their messages private and secret. Newspapers for instance, had elaborate and time-consuming codes across great distances so that their messages could be printed without the information being leaked prior to publication. In this sense, the telegraph was the first medium for sending private, instant messages. In addition to the first way to instantaneously communicate with friends, family, colleagues and more, Morse code was used on railways. Railways and telegraphs mutually benefitted one another.
Not only did the telegraph/Morse code increase productivity, efficiency, and overall safety of the railroad, but the railroad assisted the telegraph’s efficiency in numerous ways as well. Telegraph companies and train companies had mutually beneficial contracts, for instance, trains transport telegraph wire repair equipment for free and “railroad wire never to be interrupted when sending railroad business,” (Phalen, 118).
Samuel Morse’s invention truly changed the world. The telegraph and Morse code changed the outcome of the American Revolution, aiding communication between military stations. “[The telegraph] was the chief medium between the government, the army and the people,” (Phalen, 8). The desire to grow this network of telegraphy was huge, and thanks to a man named Cyrus Field, the telegraph crossed the Atlantic Ocean. In 1866, Field successfully established a cable that traveled from the U.S. to Europe, and the time it took to relay messages across the Atlantic went from about a month, to a few seconds. The telegraph made the world much smaller.
In addition, the telegraph affected the news immensely. The combination of speed and global communication made the telegraph an important and vital means of growth for newpapers. Prior to the telegraph, a newspaper usually had a combination of local news which was amassed by reporters on a daily basis, and foreign and national news that could be weeks old,” (Phalen, 8). Since readers were now aware they could receive the most up-to-date information and news, that is all they wanted to read. In addition, warfare drove readers desire for current intelligence. The constant and ever-changing status of war and conflict throughout Europe and the America’s influenced how readers consumed the news.
In conclusion, Samuel Morse’s telegraph created unmatched opportunities of growth for its consumers. Small businesses, newspapers, railroads, the general public, various branches of government, and more shared information at unparalleled speeds, unlike ever before. The efficiency of this communication truly altered how people interacted with information and technology, and it gave rise to new technologies and systems.
Works Cited
Gleick, James. The Information: A history, A theory, A Flood. Vintage Books, NY, 2011.
Phalen, William J.. How the Telegraph Changed the World, McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:3447/lib/wsu/detail.action?docID=1882121.
Driscoll, Sally. “Samuel Morse.” Samuel Morse, 8/1/2017, p. 1. EBSCOhost, www.systems.wsu.edu/scripts/wsuall.pl?url=http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2057/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=19617026&site=ehost-live.