Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Samuel Morse
The telegraph was an even more dramatic innovation in its day than the Internet
On May 24, 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse, a professor at the University of the City of New York, was seated in the chambers of the U.S.
Despite all the recent talk, governments will never be much good at fostering new technologies.
In May of 1927, a secretary rushed into her boss’ office shouting, “He did it! He did it! Lindbergh has landed in Paris!” The boss was unimpressed. “Don’t you understand?” she asked. “Lindbergh has flown the Atlantic all by himself.”
Incidents in history are usually significant only in combination with a succession of other incidents. Isolated incidents can assume importance only when they summarize an epoch in one dramatic moment or when fuller knowledge of the event might alter interpretations.
When did we start saying it? And why?
FROM THE OIL FIELDS of Indonesia to the tulip fields of Holland to the rice fields of Brazil, a traveler overhears conversations sounding something like this:
It took a decade of effort, heart-breaking disappointments, and the largest ship afloat before Cyrus Field could lay a successful cable across the Atlantic
Cyrus West Field was one of the greatest Americans of the nineteenth century, but today there can be few of his countrymen who remember him.
In February 1837, Treasury Secretary Levi Woodbury called for information from the “most intelligent sources” to help prepare a report to Congress on the propriety of establishing a “system of telegraphs” for the United States.
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