How Samuel Morse, a Racist Painter, Stole the Telegraph 

Henry did eventually get his recognition and even got a unit named after him

Morse, like many successful inventors, had the vision and insight to put the many technologies together in a way that worked, this is often confused with credit in the academic world where the credit goes to the theory and not the application. A good percentage on inventions are just a novel combination of existing things. Secondly, no one looks to Morse for his political or personal views on anything, he is not touted as some kind of virtue of man, nope, just for his work. Also note that historically, inventors and innovators often are horrible people, I always found it ironic that they could both be horrible people and great inventors that brought so much to so many.

At 6 minutes into the video, there is an illustration of the code. Except, the wrong code is shown. What is show is the EUROPEAN code, not the AMERICAN Morse Code. About half the Dot/Dash combinations are different. The European code has a lot more Dashes in it, while American Morse is principally a Dot code. The European code was never used in American telegraph work. The radio people always used (and still do use) the European code. Why? Well, who invented the radio? Marconi invented radio. And where was Marconi from? Italy, which is in Europe, so Marconi was familiar with the European code, and that is what he employed on his new invention, wireless radio. Your assessment of Old Man Morse is absolutely right: He was a Me-My-I type person, and screwed over everybody he ever had business dealings with. The only person he was not able to screw over was the politician,. "Fog" Smith, who deviled Morse to his dying day.

I never knew what a scoundrel Morse was, and had never heard of Vail's contribution. Thanks for setting the record straight.

Absolutely love that you strive for TRUTH, and not the same parrot repeats as the others. Thank you!

Gerke's refinement of Morse's code The Morse code, as specified in the current international standard, International Morse Code Recommendation, ITU-R M.1677-1,[1] was derived from a much-improved proposal by Friedrich Gerke in 1848 that became known as the "Hamburg alphabet". Gerke changed many of the codepoints, in the process doing away with the different length dashes and different inter-element spaces of American Morse, leaving only two coding elements, the dot and the dash. Codes for German umlauted vowels and sch were introduced. Gerke's code was adopted in Germany and Austria 1851.[21] This finally led to the International Morse code in 1865. The International Morse code adopted most of Gerke's codepoints. The codes for o and p were taken from a code system developed by Steinheil. A new codepoint was added for j since Gerke did not distinguish between i and j. Changes were also made to x, y, and z. This left only four codepoints identical to the original Morse code, namely e, h, k and n, and the latter two had their dahs extended to full length. The original American code being compared dates to 1838; the later American code shown in the table was developed in 1844.[15] The Titanic sent ...---,,, or SOS. Unfortunately, many operators were not used to SOS: In the absence of international regulations, individual organizations were left to develop their own practices. On 7 January 1904 the Marconi International Marine Communication Company issued "Circular 57", which specified that, for the company's worldwide installations, beginning 1 February 1904 "the call to be given by ships in distress or in any way requiring assistance shall be 'C.Q.D.'".[10] An alternative proposal, put forward in 1906 by the U.S. Navy, suggested that the International Code of Signals flag signals should be adopted for radio use, including "NC", which stood for "In distress; want immediate assistance".[11]

A small correction: the painter you referred to is Titian, pronounced Tish-in; titian is also a color, in the coppery reddish/orange or auburn spectrum, named after the painter's frequent use of it as a hair color in his paintings.

Stole the telegraph, is not an accurate statement. You may not like his politics you don't have to, but saying he stole it is not a accurate statement

A remarkable effort by Kathy who is truly a gifted person - I have enjoyed watching the series. I like the lucid style and the enormous information on technology wrapped in such a simple conversational style. May God bless you forever.

I’m enjoying this series, in parallel with other videos you made, thank you!

I've been binge-watching your channel for hours now. I think I'm in love. Your SO is a most fortunate person.

Engineers like Alfred Vail do all the valuable work and at the end gets nothing, very typical even today.

Kathy, your electricity lead-in "song" is a hoot !!!

Great series Kathy love your enthusiasm and obvious love of technology. Side note for a long time and maybe still to this day my Great Uncle Ted R. McElroy held the world record for morse code sending or receiving (I forget which) as well as inventing one of the types of keys.

Thank you for illuminating the oft ignored. I teach networking at a tiny non-profit college. At every opportunity I endeavor to share with my students the history of the people who actually contrive and invent things that later the merchants of our world harness to their benefit. Now I feel even more able to teach the history of those whose ideas and accomplishments are clouded in mystery. People never remembered, and too oft forgotten.

Kathy you are incredible, you are exploring exactly what I wanted to know about physics, namely its step by step evolution

Kathy, great stuff. I have been watching your videos, now about at 20 I have a BA in Math with dearly a major in Physics, have been a ham radio operator 1958-64 then returned in 2008 as a Tech/General then a Extra in 2009 - K3HQI. I designed and built crystal filters in the early 60's and have done computers and data communications since. I have found about 3 interpretations of history that I disagree with but you are right on others and this may be just how we individually see it. I have watched most of your radio stuff and you are the first who has explained the Titanic radio issue in a way that the average person could understand. I may have missed it, I did not remember you saying that the radio operators were not crew under the captain, they were Marconi employees. To a degree the Marconi profit motive killed many by the RO annoying the other ship RO. The only place I have found that you have an error is noted below and the guy who mentions it failed to put that into context. The Morse Code you showed is International Morse, not the original code. An example is the letter C in the telegraph code was dit dit pause dit. The international C is dah dit dah dit. The original system was click click when the sounder went up and down - fast is a dit (dot) and slower is a dah (dash). In radio it is beeps. BTW, I never got past 5 Words per minute - Today some hams use CW - Continuous Wave (the acronym for code) but many use other modes including digital ones. As difficult for me as the beeps were I cannot imagine working with the clicks. and worse, is C, dit dit pause dit a C or I (dit dit) and E (dit). There are other letters that are different but C is the one I remember. That said, great job. I have learned some things and had some refreshed. You are also one of the great historians on RU-vid, the other being the History guy - and he is not great with physics.

Very awesome videos Kathy! Glad that I found your channel.

Very good!! Now I gotta know more about Joseph Henry. Let's GO !!

Morse was a business man who got credit for discoveries of others. Marconi did the same thing and somehow won a nobel prize of inventing nothing but he built a business based on other's work. It's kinda sad for those who did the science but were not greedy and conniving enough to exploit it for profit.

As a black man who has been binge watching over 20 of your videos, I appreciate you shining light on the racism throughout history. Also, thank you for acknowledging Sam Parker. I can't wait to research more about him

LOve your videos! Such a great content and storytelling! WHen i learned all this in school, many things about historical persons been told without any contexts, so a lot of valuable information have been lost. But you are showing all connections between people and events, and that makes all picture clear!

Thank you very much for this video. I have read a lot about Joseph Henry and the significance of his discoveries. I am glad that the true story is finally being told. Lincoln would also visit Henry at the Smithsonian, after hours, to help him with his experiments.

No mention of Charles Morrison or Alexander Bain?! Wheatstone stole most of Bain's ideas. Charles Morrison was born in Greenock around the same time as James Watt. In 1753 a letter of his was published in the Scots Magazine succinctly describing the Telegraph machine and was the first use of the term "Insulation". There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that Morrison built and demonstrated his apparatus but no Cast Iron proof. Ironically, Morrison's telegraph would only be practical over very long distances after the Wheatstone Bridge was invented. Two versions of Bain's Telegraph (the needle and chemical) were in use by 1837 along the Glasgow/Edinburgh railway lines. Luckily Bain had patented his ideas and apparatus years earlier and successfully sued Wheatstone and Cooke for a LARGE fortune. My own hometown, Greenock, Scotland, had Trade Adverts for the local Telegraph Office in 1840 and it certainly wasn't new then.

I have had a good day, every day since I found your videos, thanks for your kind wishes at the end of each video. Kathy you are the best!

Morse is the inventor of the telegraph. Henry, Vail and Gail apparently didn't do anything with the telegraph. Morse did and it changed the world. According to American patent law, it is not the person who first thinks of an idea that can legally call themselves the inventor but the person who holds the patent. You can patent any idea that isn't yet patented whether you thought of it or not. In that sense, Morse is the inventor of the telegraph.

The illustrated Morse code is International Morse code, now current but based on tones and not clicks. Telegraph Morse uses different sequences and timings for some letters.

As an inventor, I used to get mad when I heard that Marconi, Zuckerberg, Morse, and others essentially "stole" someone else's invention/idea, but it takes a certain type of person to capitalize on inventions. Morse deserves a lot of credit for the telegraph because he made it useful and practical whether he invented it or not.

Hey Kathy I like watching ur videos u helped spark an interest in electronic engineering tht I never knew I had however as I went deeper into the rabbit hole I discovered an inventor named Otis Boykin he invented the modern resistor which is a pretty big invention in the world of electronics My question is do u have any videos on him ? If not why ? And will u make one ? I’ll be looking forward to a response

Love your work. Good history combined with an understandable explanation of science provides a great teaching/learning tool. But, Isn't the code alphabet shown in the video International Morse code, not the original code used by Morse himself?

i have an essay due tomorrow so i’m here.....

... Enjoyable ! Thanks for this; 2 thumbs up !

Telegraph of Gauss and Weber: 1833 (using a 5-bit telegraphy code) Friedrich Clemens Gerke: 1848 2-Symbol telegraphy-code, standardized 1865 (ITU-R M.1677-1)

If you would take the time to understand the differences of the American Morse telegraph code vs the Continental telegraph code. Telegraphy was tied to the burgeoning railroads of the era. Wireless telegraphy would not develop until after the turn of the century. The elegant dots and dashes of today’s CW code avoided the eccentric letter codes in the original American Code. Just check out the Wikipedia article on Morse Code to see the different versions of CW code. (N.B. CW means continuous wave. A radio transmits a continuous wave, which is variably interrupted to transmit the signal. Thus, signal bandwidth is much narrower, compared to Amplitude Modulated or Frequency Modulated modes. Narrower bandwidth (200 Hz) allows more distinct messages to be transmitted over a radio frequency band.

I always wondered how one telegraph office can send a message to one specific office out of hundreds or thousands. Do all telegraph offices along the same telegraph line receive the same message at the same time?

Brilliant and very informative I enjoy all your videos!!!

Magnificent! Thank You!

thank you!Fascinating!

How did i get here my essay isn’t even on the telegraph

Also Wheatstone and Cooke's multineedle telegraph preceded the Morse version

Samuel Morse did not steal the Telegraph. Yes, he had help but he invented the first working and practical telegraph. He was sued many times by these other people and The Supreme Court upheld his patent.

I would like to hear about the battery that provided the current to lift a ton.

Kathy, your videos are a treasure! I've learned so much, not least of which are the seedier side of humankind's breakthroughs. One thing an art historian might quibble with though is the pronunciation of the italian artist's english name, Titian (TISH-en.) Your mix of technical accuracy and history is something that has resonated with me. I loved to lose myself in the historical footnotes of the cold dry pages of theory and math formulas back in school. Don't stop!!

He wasn’t racist, he hated Catholics no matter what their heritage. It may seem strange to you now, but the first question my Wife’s parents asked her when she told them we were going out was “Is he a Catholic”, they were Protestants and my FiL was a Mason. Lucky for me, I was Protestant.

Morse just did the same as Edison. He was an investor with a 'vision', an entrepreneur in todays meaning. Paying people to solve problems and filing the resulting solutions as patents under their own name instead of the actual inventor. It was common practice back then and is often so, even now. The usual practice of today's patent system includes the names of the inventors but the patents themselves are owned by the company the inventor works for. Sadly such proceedings go against the self-made millionaire and genius billionaire mindset and are often ignored. In the end, having good ideas and inventing revolutionary solutions will not make you rich, it will make other people rich 🙂

My grandfather was a telegrapher! It was a good gig at the time.

Kathy, GREAT videos! Are you a prof?

I appreciate the science and history connection.

I think you should keep using the Ramsey Lewis type groove in your closing.

I'm glad each of these can stand alone on its own. Nice job with that

This person is talking about a different telegraph, the telegraph that Samuel Morse made was the morse code telegraph which was the original telegraph

You should visit the Morse Estate in Poughkeepsie. They tell the story more accurately.

Loved it!

So Congressman Francis Smith invented regulatory capture and kickbacks?

Dr. Kathy is truly a remarkable teacher.

Bill Cates and Steve Jobbs ?

What a wild story. Amazing

Great series, but can you give references in the description? Only if I can verify your data would I accept this as more than another possible version and subsequently quote you. I've watched about ten of your videos. Great work, but not conversation fodder nor 'to be long term remembered' without references to check and further reading on your assertions. Actually, you do put some references on screen, but can you give us the sources?

Wow. As a telegraph-loving ham, I was taken aback to hear all this. I always admired Morse the painter, too. Once lived in Brooklyn,a block away from Morse's ( and Leonard Bernstein's) grave. Guess I wil stick with Lenny. 73 de XE1GXG

Racist painters sounds like a common historical theme.

to add little to such outstanding lecture: Paper strips were not widely used, operators would just hear and write, as many abbreviations came in use, the dots and dash did not sound like that in line telegraph, the receiving magnet would have a rattle sound a DOT was TiC a dash TIC.......TAC as the magnet attracted and loose, so this would be like learning percusion music,, an A . _ would be TARAAAAT, then came the BSS..BBBBBSSSSSSS sound in radio telegrafh like Titianic´ and only later in AM radio could be heard the typical BEEP .....BEEEEEEEEEP sound..

Binge watching just a few years late

Morse tied other people's ideas together in a business model. Then he ripped them off as much as he could. A balanced moral approach to this would have probably yielded him about as much money. The good will and lost opportunities never obtained by his actions can't be known.

Good stuff.

Love the videos... noticed you showed a later (much later) .... more refined code chart. Morses was different and very hard to copy by ear... AND... Morse was NOT the first to demonstraight a practicle Telegraph.... some mention of Wheatstone is due....

(9:08) It also helped Grant coordinate his armies in 1864-65 and crush the CSA. The Signal Corps would go in advance to a position and spool out miles of wire to link up the generals and also feed back to Washington. They were also able to tap CSA lines and break their encryption on multiple occasions.

I know it's been 4 years, and it might be hard to remember, but were you having trouble breathing when you made this one? Like maybe you had a cold.

Background music was a bit ‘noise on the line’ alas and distracting, but the message itself was excellent as usual 🙂

Growing up, in my town the two most famous people were not very good. Samuel Morse had his workshop next door, and this was on Alden Street. Alden was a bad commander in the Revolutionary War whose inaction allowed the Cherry Valley massacre to happen.

This is the largest insult I have ever heard.

I love that they erected a monument to the theft of public funds. "What hath god wrought?" indeed.

Quickly patenting what others would have invented for free, and then stealing tax money to get rich. The modern economy.

Great content and presentation. I believe that by and large we living in the 21st c. have lost sight of history. Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th c. this nation was predominantly Protestant and Catholics and the Catholic Church was not to be trusted. Anti-Catholic bigotry was the cultural norm and prevalent. Keep the good stuff coming Kathy and thanks de AB1DQ/James

This evil man destroyed the Pony Express and deserves the the outrage heaped on him. {:~)

This is probably the most surprising I have yet found. I will never again use the term "Morse code". Few major advances in electricity and communications are properly credited. I have seen first-hand the result of self-promoters and patent jumpers and it is very painful to contemplate.

Maybe he put together other people's ideas, but he made it happen.

Morse was an early John-Bircher? Yikes.

I knew about Alfred Vail but not about the rest of the story.

I've really enjoyed watching this series. One small quibble however, I find your pronunciation of some names a bit odd. Understandable if you've not heard them, only read them. For example in this video Titian you pronounce Tight On whereas I've always heard it pronounced Tish An or maybe Tish On. I've noticed what appeared to be idiosyncratic pronunciation of names in previous videos but never let it bother me but thought you might like to check how names are pronounced in the future because this series is very good and obviously a lot of reading lies behind it. So it feels like pointing out a mark on otherwise spotless garments. But like such a mark it jars. As does my propensity for sentence structure that is in many ways unconventional. I don't think Grammerly would approve.

Some people are victims of the times, politics and financial institutions.- © 2024 k.o.f.

Doppelgänger, by the way Kirchhoff, Kirche = Church, Hoffnung = Hope, Churchhope ;)

Great work Kathy- looking forward to more!

This channel has been instrumental in lowering the esteem of a few figures in my mind, such as Morse and W. Heisenberg. 🤔

Now I know (allegedly) who inspired Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey.

N they found the missing link of insulation in Malaysia,

well, its too late now.....

morse is my great great great grandfather this was intresting to see your opinion.

at 5:12 Patents never show the real thing, always hiding some or wrong drawings,, as in the red circling the contact would open only in the middle travel a very short time..

Love you, Kathy! But Titian is pronounced TISHUN, not Titan.

You should retract what you said of joseph henry in your previous video.. As you contradicted your racist theory in this video. Sincerely, Joseph Henry.. Scientist.. Inventor.. Music producer.. Writer.. Artist.. Actor.

Wow, Morse was an obvious eccentric.So, when you got friends in high places, you soak up the credit.

Titan??? Do you mean TITIAN (pro. TISHAN)?? :)

Samuel morse? the same samuel morse from arroyo puerto rico? wtf?

Not by my quantum reality.

It's pronounced Ti-shun ,but still an excellent video

Titian is not pronounced Titan.

What you showed was international Morse Code. Morse original was more complicated.

Kathy needs to GET HELP!!!

Its upsetting how many people in history turn out to be liars or thieves. It's nice when they change, but this one didn't, did he? Thank you for these. I think it gives hope to inventors who realize that the greats were not really greats but people like them, or less than them.

Your use of the word "xenophobia" to discuss Morse is a bit disingenuous, don't you think? This is a modern day revisionist description of virtually every person in the nineteenth century as it was the norm to place their religious and ethnic beliefs above all others. To single out Morse as a zealot Xenophobe is as if no one in society ever thought that way. Stick to physics Kathy and dispense with woke-ism.