Morse Sends 'What Hath God Wrought': The Telegraph Era Begins

Four words hummed across 38 miles of copper wire and the speed of human communication changed forever. On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse sat in the old Supreme Court chamber in the U.S. Capitol and tapped out "What hath God wrought" in the dot-dash code that bore his name. His assistant Alfred Vail received the message at a railroad depot in Baltimore, and the electromagnetic telegraph was no longer an experiment. Morse was a portrait painter, not an engineer. He had conceived the idea for an electric telegraph during a transatlantic voyage in 1832 after a conversation about electromagnetism. The next twelve years were spent building prototypes, refining the code system, and lobbying Congress for funding. The Senate appropriated $30,000 in 1843 to construct an experimental line between Washington and Baltimore, and Morse hired Vail and Ezra Cornell to build it. The biblical phrase was chosen by Annie Ellsworth, daughter of the U.S. Patent Commissioner, from the Book of Numbers. The message traveled at the speed of electricity, roughly 186,000 miles per second, covering in an instant a distance that would take a horse rider four hours. Commercial telegraph service opened within months. By 1846, private companies were stringing wire across the eastern United States. Western Union, founded in 1851, built a transcontinental line by 1861. Undersea cables crossed the Atlantic by 1866. Within two decades of Morse's demonstration, information could circle the globe in minutes. The telegraph rewired commerce, warfare, journalism, and diplomacy. Stock prices could be transmitted instantly. Generals could coordinate distant armies. Newspapers launched wire services. Diplomats could consult their capitals before making decisions. Every subsequent communications revolution, from the telephone to the internet, built on the infrastructure and the idea that Morse proved workable in that Capitol basement.