Samuel Morse was a successful portrait painter. In 1825, while working in Washington, he received a letter saying his wife was gravely ill at home. By the time he got back, she had died and been buried. Years later, on a voyage home from Europe in 1832, a conversation about electromagnets sparked an idea: sending messages by wire. He spent twelve years developing the telegraph and its code of dots and dashes, and in 1844 the world suddenly got faster.
Samuel Morse
Morse Code Inventor
EXTRA-ORDINARY TRAIT
REINVENTION
JFDI PILLAR
I — INSTINCT
COUNTRY & REGION
USA (Americas)
LIFESPAN
1791 – 1872
GENDER
Man
EDITION
No.012
✦ DEFINING MOMENT
Tapping out the first long distance telegraph message, Washington to Baltimore, 1844.
✦ ARCHIVAL DOSSIER
The Story
✦ VERIFIED QUOTE
“What hath God wrought" (the first long distance message, 1844, verified)”
✦ DID YOU KNOW?
He was 53 when that first long distance message was sent.
✦ YOUR TURN
What could you reinvent yourself as, at any age?
COLLECTIBLE EDITIONS
Wear this Mind
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