Why Did Samuel Morse Use The Telegraph?

Samuel Morse’s passion for electricity was sparked during his college years at Yale. On a ship returning from Europe, he discussed the recent invention of electromagnets with fellow passengers. It was then the he speculated that with the use of these electromagnets, communication over a long distance may be possible. He began to work on creating an electric telegraph, but his experiments with wires and magnets did not go far due to his elementary knowledge of electricity. In desperation, he turned to his colleague, Leonard D. Gale. With Gale’s help, Morse invented the telegraph (Library of Congress). Morse’s electric telegraph functioned through the use of electric signals sent over wires. The flow of electricity controlled by holding down

In the early 1800’s, print news coverage was extremely slow. Papers mostly stuck to reporting on local stories. Foreign news was rare, and usually weeks old. Newspapers would copy news from one other to fill up their papers with stories. However, in the 1820’s the Journal of Commerce and Courier and Enquirer in New York City began to compete for business, and the race was on for speedy news updates. All sorts of means were used to collect news stories from across the states, such as the Pony Express, where wiry young many relay-raced horses across the wild west to deliver mail (Encyclopedia.com), carrier pigeon, express trains, and sephamore systems. The telegraph put an end to all of these means, and was a complete game

In 1846, Associated Press, an American news company, began to use the telegraph to transmit messages in-between newspaper offices (“The Invention of the Telegraph”). Due to the expenses of communicating over telegraph, newsmen invented “telegraphic reporting,” an abbreviated form of speech that would leave out words or run them together. Writers would decipher this speech to write the stories (Encyclopedia.com). Also because of the expenses, journalistic writing became more concise and seemingly more neutral. With the lightning-like speed of telegraphs, people could now read of business and political events within hours of their occurrence, instead of weeks afterward. Fast-moving stories called for “extra editions” of newspaper prints. Furthermore, people longed for foreign news, no matter how relevant it was. So excited to hear any prospects of foreign news, the public seemed to be more entranced with how much animal skins were sold for in Africa than the local economy. This of course, leveled out as the telegraph became more dated (The