#Western union telegram code

Morse slowly continued to spread his invention and he extended the telegraph line to New York. The telegraph system progressed slowly, and many attempts failed to make the system work for the entire country. On May 24, 1844, the first message, “What hath God wrought?” was sent. In 1843, Morse built a telegraph system from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore with the financial support of Congress. He was not the first to think of the idea – 62 people had claimed to invent the first electrical telegraph by 1838 – but Morse beat everyone else to by being the first to get political backing for his telegraph and a business model for making it work.

#Western union telegram code

New York University professor Samuel Morse (pictured at left) began working on his version of the telegraph in 1832 he developed Morse Code (a set of sounds that corresponded to particular letters of the alphabet), in 1835 and by 1838 he had presented his concept to the U.S. The idea behind the telegraph – sending electric signals across wires – originated in the early 1700s, and by 1798 a rough system was used in France. Telegraph Predictions The Development of the Telegraph Telegraph usage faded as radio became easy to use and popularized as radio was being developed, the telephone quickly became the fastest way to communicate person-to-person after television was perfected and content for it was well developed, it became the dominant form of mass-communication technology the internet came next, and newspapers, radio, telephones, and television are being rolled into this far-reaching information medium.

Printing remained the key format for mass messages for years afterward, but the telegraph allowed instant communication over vast distances for the first time in human history. This timeline is provided to help show how the dominant form of communication changes as rapidly as innovators develop new technologies.Ī brief historical overview: The printing press was the big innovation in communications until the telegraph was developed.