Telegraphy
Telegraphy is a significant method of long-distance communication that utilizes a device called a telegraph to send electrical signals over wires. The term "telegraph" is rooted in Greek, meaning "to write at a distance." Although Samuel F. B. Morse is often credited with inventing the electric telegraph in the 1830s, he primarily improved existing designs and created Morse code, a system of dots and dashes that simplified message transmission. Before the telegraph, ancient civilizations used methods like smoke signals and drumbeats, which had limitations due to environmental factors.
The telegraph revolutionized communication by enabling rapid message delivery over vast distances, paving the way for the establishment of telegraph networks. The first electric telegraph in the United States was successfully demonstrated in 1844, marking a pivotal moment in communication history. By the late 19th century, however, the rise of the telephone and other technologies began to replace the telegraph as the primary mode of long-distance communication. Despite this, the telegraph remains a foundational innovation that transformed how information was shared globally, influencing the development of future communication technologies.
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Telegraphy
Telegraphy is a form of long-distance communication that uses a device known as a telegraph to transmit electrical signals over wires. The telegraph sends a series of pulses and taps electronically over the length of a wire to another device. The word telegraph is derived from the Greek words tele, which means "at a distance," and graphien, which means "to write."
While American painter and inventor Samuel F. B. Morse sometimes is credited with inventing the electric telegraph in the 1830s, Morse made improvements to the device and invented a code that was used to simplify the messages sent.
Telegraphy was used prior to Morse's developments. Although the invention of the telephone and fax machine—and later the Internet and smart phone—eventually replaced the telegraph, the telegraph remained one of the earliest and most successful long-distance communication devices.
History
Early ancient civilizations were sending information across distances long before the nineteenth century. Smoke signals and drumbeats were examples of these early long-distance communication methods. These systems had limits, however. Sending smoke signals depended on factors such as weather, and the messages could be interrupted by rain or wind. Smoke signals also needed a clear line of sight between the sender and the receiver. Drumbeats could be interrupted by weather or noise that prevented the receiver from hearing the message from the sender.
In the 1790s, Frenchman Claude Chappe invented an early telegraph system known as the semaphore. Chappe designed the system to include a central beam with two short rotating arms attached to each end. The device sat on top of a manned tower. An operator rotated the two arms to different positions to create forty-nine combinations. With the center beam either vertical or horizontal, this doubled the combinations to ninety-eight. Six of these were service messages, which left ninety-two combinations. The ninety-two combinations corresponded to a ninety-two-page code book. Each page contained ninety-two words, which totaled more than eight thousand words that could be transmitted. If the operator positioned the arms to show fifteen and then thirty-two, this meant the fifteenth word on page thirty-two was the first word of the message. The operator then continued to move the arms until the complete message was transmitted.
The system used a series of stations located about six miles away from each other. Operators manning each station watched a particular station by telescope for a message. They then passed on the message to the next station until the message reached the last station and was translated. The final operator looked up the semaphore combinations in the code book to translate the message. It took operators about thirty seconds to position the arms for each word. This was a laborious task, but it was the fastest way to send information over long distances at the time. Transmission of messages by way of semaphore took as little as a few hours to reach different parts of the country, compared to horseback messengers, who typically took several days to deliver messages. The semaphore system had problems. It needed skilled operators, and messages could only be sent in the daytime and when the weather was clear.
People stopped using the semaphore in the nineteenth century with the invention of the electric telegraph. In the early part of the century, Italian physicist Alessandro Volta invented the battery. This innovation led several scientists and inventors to experiment with electromagnetism, eventually developing a long-distance communication system. In the 1830s, British inventors William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone developed a telegraph system that railroad operators used to communicate in Britain.
After learning about electromagnetism from American physicist Joseph Henry, American painter and inventor Samuel F. B. Morse worked with Leonard Gale, a professor, and inventor Alfred Vail to debut an electric telegraph in the United States. After several failed attempts, Morse and the others finally invented a working device. Their telegraph sent electric signals across a length of wire to a receiver. It was the first long-distance mode of communication in the United States.
Morse also developed a code that used a series of dots and dashes to represent the letters of the English alphabet to help simplify the transmission of messages. This became known as Morse code. Morse sent his first telegraph message ("What hath God wrought!") by telegraph in 1844 from Washington, DC, to Baltimore, Maryland. In the years that followed, several telegraph companies formed and set up telegraph lines throughout the United States. By 1866, telegraph lines crossed the Atlantic Ocean, connecting the United States to Europe.
The electric telegraph changed the way information was distributed across the United States and other parts of the world. Instead of waiting days or even weeks for mail and news to be delivered, telegraph stations distributed this information nearly instantly. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, new technology such as the telephone replaced the telegraph system. This new mode of communication set the stage for the development of other technologies—such as the fax machine, Internet, and smartphone—that would further change the face of communication.
Bibliography
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McGillem, Clare D. "Development of the Telegraph." Britannica, 16 July 2024, www.britannica.com/technology/telegraph/Development-of-the-telegraph-industry. Accessed 18 Nov. 2024.
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