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FIGURE 1.12
Pony Express riders lost their jobs when the US transcontinental telegraph line
was completed in 1861.
(© North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy)
Samuel Morse, a professor of arts and design at New York University, worked on the idea
of a telegraph during most of the 1830s, and in 1838 he patented his design of a telegraph
machine. The US Congress did not approve Morse's proposal in 1837 to construct a New
York-to-New Orleans telegraph system, but it did not fund any of the other proposals
either. Morse persisted with his lobbying, and in 1843 Congress appropriated $30,000
to Morse for the construction of a 40-mile telegraph line between Washington, DC, and
Baltimore, Maryland.
On May 1, 1844, the Whig party convention in Baltimore nominated Henry Clay for
president. The telegraph line had been completed to Annapolis Junction at that time. A
courier hand-carried a message about Clay's nomination from Baltimore to Annapolis
Junction, where it was telegraphed to Washington. This was the first news reported via
telegraph. The line officially opened on May 24. Morse, seated in the old Supreme Court
chamber inside the US Capitol, sent his partner in Baltimore a verse from the Bible:
“What hath God wrought?”
The value of the telegraph was immediately apparent, and the number of tele-
graph lines quickly increased. By 1846 telegraph lines connected Washington, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, New York, Buffalo, and Boston. In 1850 twenty different companies oper-
ated 12,000 miles of telegraph lines. The first transcontinental telegraph line was com-
pleted in 1861, putting the Pony Express out of business (Figure 1.12). The telegraph
was the sole method of rapid long-distance communication until 1877. By this time the
United States was networked by more than 200,000 miles of telegraph wire [27].
The telegraph was a versatile tool, and people kept finding new applications for it.
For example, by 1870 fire alarm telegraphs were in use in 75 major cities in the United
