The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another

Chapter 3 posits a connection between the invention of the telegraph and the development of American English. In 1825, Samuel F. B. Morse received news that his wife died of a heart attack days earlier while he was in Washington DC. Upset at the loss of his wife and the slowness at which the news reached him, Morse sought to improve the speed of long-distance communication. Years later, a Boston doctor discovered that electricity could travel easily and swiftly across space. This discovery paved the way for the invention of the telegraph, which conveys information via iron or copper wires and electricity. Morse built a prototype using an old clock, a wooden frame, and a pencil. This early model resembled playground equipment—specifically, a swing and a seesaw. The swing included a pencil that typed a series of Vs on a piece of paper. The bottom of a V symbolized a dot, while a stretched line between Vs was a dash. These dots and dashes were made by an electrical signal emitted from the transmitter (the seesaw). The formations of dots and lines corresponded to numbers, which in turn formed words. Morse created a more advanced version of the telegraph in collaboration with a former student.