Primary Sources

Cornell, Alonzo B. "Invention of The Telegraph." History of the World. n.p., Bureau of
Electronic Publishing 1992. n.pag. eLibrary. Web. 24 Apr.
2010.

This article was by far the most informative about the invention of the
telegraph. It gave an extremely detailed account of the events leading up to
the invention of the telegraph and also provided detail on the invention
process, introduction, and application of the telegraph in America. It is the
first primary source we have come across. It was written by the son of the
founder of the Western Union Telegraph Company in the 1900s, which was
founded soon after the telegraph was invented. Since it was a primary
source, it was authoritative and credible (Alonzo B. Cornell was the president
of the company at one point).

Morse, Edward Lind. Samuel F.B. Morse Letters and Journals. Boston, New York:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914.

Now the most reliable resource we have ever found, Samuel F.B. Morse
Letters and Journals is written by Edward Lind Morse, descendant of Morse
himself. The book consists of an amazingly detailed account of Samuel
Morse’s experiments and processes, by providing Morse’s own journals,
letters, and drawings. This source gave us some information on how the
telegraph worked and some quotes from Morse. It also helped us with some
of the revolutionary aspects of the telegraph.

Morse, Samuel F.B. “Letter from Morse to his Assistant Alfred Vail.” 1844. Samuel
F.B. Morse Papers. Library of Congress. May 9, 2010.

A letter Samuel Morse wrote to his assistant and co-creator of Morse code,
Alfred Vail, just months after the telegraph began operation. A reaction from
the creator himself, Morse wrote this letter to Vail, warning him about
allowing very biased and opinionated telegraph operators to be in charge of
transmitting information, for fear of the altering of the message from one
place to another. This concerned reaction was lessened in later reforms like
the telephone, allowing messages to go to the one person on the receiving
end instead of the message having to go to telephone operators first.
Morse, Samuel F.B. "Letter to a Member of Congress from Samuel Morse (1838)."
Samuel F.B. Morse: Letters and Journals. Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1914.

In his letter to a Congressman, Samuel Morse talks about how his telegraph will
make it so that the U.S. will become closer and more united with each other,
"making, in fact, one neighborhood of the whole country," which was a very
revolutionary idea at the time. This is a reliable source since it was written by
Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph himself.

Morse, Samuel F.B. “Patent to Congress(1838).” Samuel F.B. Morse: Letters and
Journals. Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914.

Written by Samuel Morse to Congress, stating why he should have the rights to
build the telegraph. Morse explains that communication will be instantaneous
and that the metaphorical idea of “space” in the U.S. will no longer exist. It is
because of this reason that makes the telegraph revolutionary. Because this
letter was written by Morse, this is a reliable, authoritative source.

“The Progress of the Electric Telegraph.” The Atlantic Monthly: A Magazine of

Literature, Art, and Politics (1860). CBS. May 9, 2010.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/cable/filmmore/ps_progress.html

An article from the 1860 Atlantic Monthly (found on PBS.org), a popular,

accurate newspaper in the 1800s. The article talks about the Transatlantic
Cable, one of the biggest reform movements after the telegraph. Many people
knew that the telegraph would be a huge step in more efficient communication
but they wondered what they would do with it. Thus, in 1866, the Transatlantic
Cable was created, the first telegraph cable laid across the Atlantic Ocean,
connecting the U.S. to Europe. This reform helped to better unite and
communicate with Europe and communication time between the U.S. and
Europe was slashed in half.

Secondary Sources

"... --- ... .-. .. .--. (SOS, RIP)." Economist. 23 Jan. 1999 eLibrary. Web. 24 Apr. 2010

A newspaper article, it provides a large amount of information about the Morse

code, how it was developed, and also how people responded to it. It gave a
more economic version of the history of the telegraph, such as how it affected
jobs and cities, which was helpful as it gave us a different perspective to see
from. This article is authoritative due to the fact that it was written by experts
 of politics and the economy, and it is credible because it is a very well-known
magazine that is known for its accuracy about today’s political issues.

Bruno, Leonard C. “The Invention of the Telegraph.” 2002 Library of Congress. May
2, 2010 <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sfbmhtml/sfbmhome.html>.

From the Library of Congress website in D.C., this web page gives a good
overview of the making of the telegraph and how it was made in a concise
manner. Morse’s telegraph used an automatic sender consisting of a plate
with long and short metal bars representing the Morse code equivalent of the
alphabet and numbers. Then, the operator slid a pointer connected to a
battery and the sending wire across the bars, and immediately the appropriate
dots and dashes were sent over the line. The receiver used an electromagnet
with a stylus on the end of an arm. When the magnet operated, the stylus
made an impression or tiny dent in a paper tape which wound past a clockwork
motor. The tape was then read by the operator, where it would then go to the
person to whom the message was sent. The electric telegraph is considered
somewhat of a “prototype” for the reforms following it such as the telegraph
and as long-distance communication became more and more efficient, the
manufacturing of the devices became more complex. Since the page is
sponsored by the Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal and cultural
constitution in the world and is also the largest library in the world with many
authoritative sources, the web page is very reliable and authoritative.

Coe, Lewis. The Telegraph: A History of Morse’s Invention and Its Predecessors in
the United States. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1993.

An informative book discussing the impact of Morse’s telegraph in the U.S. as

well as the many reform movements that come up because of it. This book
also talks about some of the problems Morse’s telegraph had and how it led to
better and more efficient modes of communication. It goes into great detail
about how the electric telegraph impacted railroadssuch as how it could keep
trains moving regularly and to warn train engineers of safety hazards. Also,
the book discusses the rigorous task of having to learn Morse code, receiving it
being the most difficult (if you missed a word, then you would have to replay
the whole message over again).Due to this reason as well as several others,
the field of telegraphy was considered an “attractive profession”, especially for
the younger population who were not so keen on college. However, having to
decode an entire message from start to finish tended to take a long time and
was not so efficient, leading to many reforms of the electric telegraph.
Galloway, Nancy, and Kirk W. House. "Hello, world." Cobblestone July-Aug. 2009:
28+. General OneFile. Web. 17 Apr. 2010.

An article from the magazine The Cobblestone that we found using a library
database. It was not very authoritative since it’s designed for children ages 9 to
14. However it was a reliable source because is recognized as a leading
American history magazine for young adults. While the article gave us some
more basic information about why the telegraph is revolutionary, it also gave us
info about why some people considered the telegraph to not be very “user-
friendly.”It was inconvenient because the wires were only able to carry one
message at a time, and the messages could only be relayed by specially trained
operators. The messages could not be carried very far along the wire, so
operators had to continuously re-relay the messages at various telegraph offices
to send them further to their destination.

Howe, Daniel W. What Hath God Wrought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

An authoritative novel written by well-known historian Daniel Walker Howe,

author of numerous publications pertaining to America and its history. It was
useful in showing the connections between previous events and the invention of
the telegraph, also giving information on how the telegraph affected America at
that time. The novel describes the introduction of the typewriter to America,
and reactions spurred from the idea that Samuel B. Morse was not the creator of
the idea of the telegraph.

Howe, Daniel Walker. "1844: What hath God wrought: The Telegraph was Even More
dramatic in its Day than the Internet." American Heritage Wntr 2010: 46+.
General OneFile. Web. 1 May 2010.

Written by the author of one of our other sources, this article is interestingly
centered on an economic point of view. It tells of how the telegraph affected
jobs and prices in the 1900s, and compares this to the affect of the internet on
today’s economy. The article is credible because its author was previously
proven credible as well.
John, Richard R. "The politics of innovation." Daedalus 4(1998):187. eLibrary. Web.
30 Apr. 2010.

A scholarly journal article that focuses on many innovations in communication,

such as the telegraph. The article gives another side to the telegraph’s reaction
from more of a federal sense. After the electric telegraph was invented, the
government did not purchase any of it from Morse, leading to a chaotic and
competitive American telegraph industry, where there was no real process
or method of purchasing the telegraph. Several attempts of mitigating the
confusion included cooperating with the Union during the Civil War and merging
several regional firms known as the Western Union in 1866. Because many
industry critics were very concerned about the high rates and limited
geographical range, Congress passed the reform movement known as the
Telegraph Act of 1866, which gave Congress the right to purchase every
telegraph company at an agreeable price, while still allowing some firms to erect
telegraphic lines on any postal route in the country. The Telegraph Act of 1866
helped to make the telegraph more accessible and cheaper, making this act a
great reform to the setup of telegraph methods and companies. Found on
eLibrary, this source was written by Richard R. John, who is a well known
specialist in communications in the U.S. He has been a colleague at the
Smithsonian Institution’s Woodrow Wilson Center in D.C. and he received several
awards such as the Allan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians
and the Herman E. Krooss Prize from the Business History Conference. Recently,
he has been selected as the President of the Business History Conference, an
international professional society dedicated to the study of institutional history.

Kelly, Martin. “Industrial Revolution: Important People, Inventions, and Events of

the American Industrial Revolution.” About.com. 2010. May 9, 2010.
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/industrialrev/a/indrevoverview_2.htm

A web page with an overview of the events happening at the time of the
invention of the telegraph. The electric telegraph was invented during the
Industrial Revolution (1790-1950), when the production of goods went from
small scale to large, commercial scale and also when new complex machines
 and inventions were rapidly appearing in everyday life. The U.S. was also
undergoing expansion during the Industrial Revolution so it was necessary to
make sure America stayed united and up-to-date with each other, which was
why Morse’s telegraph was so revolutionary and important to this time period.
The electric telegraph made long-distance communication faster and more
efficient, especially in the states. Martin Kelly, the author, is a certified social
studies teacher in Florida who also created Florida’s Virtual School curriculum as
well as the curriculum for the AP History class at his high school, making this
source very reliable and credible.

“Samuel Morse: The Telegraph.”Milestones in Science and Engineering.Target Film

Productions, 1991. Online Documentary.

A documentary about the various means of communication throughout history,

centering on the invention of the electric telegraph and how it changed
communication thereafter. It was authoritative due to the fact that it was
affiliated with the National Museum of American History. It spoke about how the
telegraph worked and how it was integrated into American culture. Also, it gave
us good reform ideas, because the telegraph was improved various times after
Morse invented it. They created a system which enabled the transmission of
multiple messages at once, not only one. There also was a form of telegraph,
created by Edward Hughes, that was invented that didn’t use the Morse code, it
only required typing. This made it easier for regular people who didn’t know
Morse code to send messages.

Silverman, Kenneth. The Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F.B. Morse.
New York: Random House Inc. 2003

A biography chronicling the life of Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph by a

Pulitzer Prize winning author. It gives clear and concise information about what
made the telegraph so revolutionary and how people reacted to the “Lightning
Line.” Back then, the telegraph was considered to be a form of teleportation
rather than communication. Americans believed that “Morse had transmitted
Thought, abstract human Thought, into metal strips and jars of acid,” making it
so different and ground-breaking from other forms of communication (241).
Many people also had doubts about whether the important intercommunication
of thought and intelligence could still take place in a rapidly expanding country.
However, the electric telegraph’s “magic chords” allowed it to still be possible in
 a time of expansion.

“Telegraph.” Young Students Learning Library. 01 Jan. 1996. eLibrary. Web. 22

Apr. 2010.

A document that describes and summarizes what makes the telegraph

revolutionary, how it works, as well as several reform movements. Some of
the reform movements are as follows:

• Gugliemo Marconi invents wireless telegraphy in 1895, which sends long-

distance messages over radio waves instead of electric waves, leading to
the ability for voice to send messages over radio. Also known as the Marconi
Radio.

• Alexander invents the telephone in 1876, which relied on a steady stream of

electricity rather than just electric bursts and you could communicate with
another person at the exact time.

• The teleprinter is developed by several engineers during the 1870s. Also

known as a typewriter. This did not require Morse code for use, allowing more
people to use it.

• The fax machine -1850s

This is a reliable source since it was found on the eLibrary database and the
Young Students Learning Library is affiliated with Gale Inc., which is known for
having accurate and authoritative reference content.