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Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 –
April 2, 1872) was an United States|American
inventor, and painter of portraits and historic
scenes; he is most famous for inventing the
electric telegraph and Morse code.

===Biography===

===Early years===

He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the
first child of geographer and pastor Jedidiah
Morse and Elizabeth Ann Breese Morse. After
attending Phillips Academy as a child, he attended
college at 14. He devoted himself to art and
became a pupil of Washington Allston, a well-known
American painter. While at Yale University, he
attended lectures on electricity from Benjamin
Silliman and Jeremiah Day. He earned money by
painting portraits. In 1810, he graduated from
Yale University. Morse later accompanied Allston
to Europe in 1811.

Morse invented a marble-cutting machine that could
carve 3D|three dimensional sculptures in marble or
Rock (geology)|stone. Morse couldn't patent it,
however, because of a pre-existing 1820 Thomas
Blanchard design. In 1823, Morse opened an art
studio in New York City. In 1825, Morse painted
Marquis de Lafayette's portrait (for
Dollar|$1,000). On February 7 of that same year,
Morse's wife, Lucretia, died suddenly. She was
buried before he returned to New Haven.

In 1837, Morse had inventor|invented the
electrical telegraph, based on Hans Christian
Ørsted's discovery in 1820 of the relationship
between electricity and magnetism. In 1832, Morse
developed the idea of electromagnetic telegraphy,
during conversations with Dr. Charles T. Jackson.
(Later, Dr. Jackson would bring a legal case over
the telegraph, which he would ultimately lose.)
Morse prototyped an electromagnetic recording
telegraph and Morse code|dot-and-dash code system
(a signalling alphabet) in his sketchbook.

When studying in Rome in 1830, he became
acquainted with the Denmark|Danish sculptor Bertel
Thorvaldsen; the two artists would sometimes take
walks together at night among the ancient ruins.
Morse also painted Thorvaldsen's portrait. In the
fall of 1835, Morse built and demonstrated a
recording telegraph with a moving paper ribbon. At
the beginning of 1836, Morse demonstrated his
recording telegraph to Dr. Leonard Gale. Also in
1836, Morse ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of New
York on a Nativist ticket, receiving 1,496 votes.

===Later years===


In 1836 Morse finished his first working prototype
of the telegraph. It used a one-element battery
and a simple electromagnet. This prototype only
worked over short distances of about 40ft or less.
In winter 1836-1837 Morse showed his prototype to
Leonard Gale, professor of chemistry at New York
University, where Morse taught painting. Gale was
aware of the works of Joseph Henry on
electromagnetic relays. Based on this knowledge
Gale suggested several improvements and also urged
Morse to read Henry's 1831 paper, which described
these improvements. With these improvements Morse
and Gale were able to record messages through ten
miles of wire.
In September of the same year, Alfred Vail, then
student at New York University, witnessed a
demonstration of the telegraph. Vail's father
Stephen Vail was a well-connected tinkerer,
inventor, lawyer, community leader, and technology
investor. He helped to finance the work on the
telegraph.

In 1838, Morse changed the telegraphic cipher,
from a telegraphic dictionary with number code to
a code for each letter. Whether Alfred Vail was
the actual inventor of this simpler code has been
debated since the earliest days. According to much
of the literature on the subject Vail was indeed
the actual inventor, although Morse and his
descendants claimed otherwise.

On January 24, Morse demonstrated the telegraph to
colleges. On February 8, 1838, Morse first
publicly demonstrated the electrical telegraph to
a scientific committee at the Franklin Institute
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (the first time it
worked was on January 6). On February 21, Morse
demonstrated the telegraph to President Martin Van
Buren and his presidential cabinet|cabinet.
Shortly afterwards, United States House of
Representatives|U.S. House of Representatives U.S.
House Committee on Energy and Commerce|Committee
on Commerce chairman F. O. J. Smith (Maine) became
a partner with Morse (and proposed a bill in
Congress, which didn't pass, for a $30,000
transmission line|telegraph line project).

In 1839, Morse published (from Paris) the first
American description of daguerreotype photography
by Louis Daguerre. Morse pioneered United
States|American daguerreotypes.  In 1844 Morse
sent the telegraph message "What hath God
wrought?" (Bible, Book of Numbers|Numbers 23:23)
from Washington, DC to Baltimore, Maryland.

In the 1850s, Morse came to Copenhagen and visited
the Thorvaldsen Museum, where the sculptor's grave
is in the inner courtyard. He was received by
Frederick VII of Denmark|King Frederick VII, and
he expressed his wish to donate his portrait from
1830 to the king. The Thorvaldsen portrait today
belongs to Margaret II of Denmark|Queen Margaret
II.

==See also==

* Main: Telegraphy, Electricity, Electrical
telegraph, Morse code, Eponym, Daguerreotype,
Semaphore (communication)|Semaphore 
* Morse, Life magazine, Microwave, Photography
* People:  William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin|Lord
Kelvin, Joseph Henry, Cyrus West Field, Ezra
Cornell, Washington Allston
* Lists: List of inventors, List of people on
stamps of the United States, List of painters,
Timeline of communication technology, List of
famous cemeteries,  Timeline of invention,
Transatlantic telegraph cable, List of inventions
named after people, List of inventors,  List of
Unitarian Universalists
* Science in the United States : Timeline of
United States history (1820-1859), United States
technological and industrial history
* Other: Compromise Generation
* Places: Yale University, Phillips Academy,
Morristown, New Jersey, Green-Wood Cemetery,
Charlestown, Massachusetts, Harkness Tower

== External links ==

General
* 1911 Encyclopedia,
"http://29.1911encyclopedia.org/M/MO/MORSE_SAMUEL_
FINLEY_BREESE.htm Samuel Finley Breese Morse".
LoveToKnow, Corp.
* "
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sfbmhtml/sfbmhome.html
Samuel F. B. Morse Papers". LOC. 
**
"http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sfbmhtml/timeline01.h
tml Morse Timeline". LOC.
* "http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/MORSE_BIO.html
Samuel Finley Breese Morse: 1791 - 1872".
Adventures in Cybersound.
* Calvert, J. B.,
"http://www.du.edu/~jcalvert/tel/heartele.htm Hear
American Morse: how it sounded on a sounder".
September 20, 2000
* "http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/106.html
Samuel F. B. Morse". National Inventors Hall of
Fame.
*
"http://www.npg.si.edu/edu/brush/guide/unit2/morse
.html Samuel F. B. Morse". Unit 2: Those Inventive
Americans. Smithsonian Institution, 2001.
* "http://www.morsum.demon.co.uk/ Morsum
Magnificat, The magazine". Wistanswick, Market
Drayton, Shropshire.
* Katz, Eugenii,
"http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/morse
.html Samuel Finley Breese Morse". Biosensors &
Bioelectronics.
* Jones, R. Victor,
"http://people.deas.harvard.edu/~jones/cscie129/le
ctures/lecture5/elecmag_tel/morse_tel.html
Electromagnetic Telegraphy The Morse-Vail-Henry
Telegraph". Deas.harvard.
* Casale, John,
"http://www.telegraph-history.org/samuel-morse/sig
nature.html Signature of the Father". W2NI. Troy,
New York.
*
http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/radio_histor
y/morse/sfbmorse.php Samuel Morse - the inventor
of the Morse Telegraph System
Radio-Electronics.Com

Court Cases
*
"http://www.law.pitt.edu/madison/patent/supplement
/oreilly_v_morse.html O'Reilly, et al. v. Morse,
et al.", 56 U.S. 62 (1853). Law.pitt.edu.

Stamps
* Reinhardt, Joachim, 
"http://www.th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/~jr/gif/sta
mps/sm_morse.jpg Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872)
Cambodcha, 2001", 
http://www.th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/~jr/physstam
ps.html Physics-Related Stamps. March 27, 2004.
* Reinhardt, Joachim,
"http://www.th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/~jr/gif/sta
mps/s_morse2.jpg Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872)
Congo, 1988".
http://www.th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/~jr/physstam
ps.html Physics-Related Stamps. March 27, 2004.

== Further reading ==
* Paul J. Staiti, Samuel F. B. Morse (Cambridge
1989).
* Lauretta Dimmick, "Mythic Proportion: Bertel
Thorvaldsen's Influence in America", Thorvaldsen:
l'ambiente, l'influsso, il mito, ed. P. Kragelund
and M. Nykjær, Rome 1991 (Analecta Romana
Instituti Danici, Supplementum 18.), pp. 169-191.
* Tom Standage, "The Victorian Internet", pp.
21-40.