68 Facts About Samuel Morse

1.

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was an American inventor and painter.

2.

Samuel Morse was a co-developer of Morse code and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy.

3.

Samuel F B Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the first child of the pastor Jedidiah Morse, who was a geographer, and his wife Elizabeth Ann Finley Breese.

4.

Samuel Morse's father was a great preacher of the Calvinist faith and supporter of the Federalist Party.

5.

Samuel Morse thought it helped preserve Puritan traditions, and believed in the Federalist support of an alliance with Britain and a strong central government.

6.

Samuel Morse strongly believed in education within a Federalist framework, alongside the instillation of Calvinist virtues, morals, and prayers for his first son.

7.

Samuel Morse married Lucretia Pickering Walker on September 29,1818, in Concord, New Hampshire.

8.

Samuel Morse died on February 7,1825, of a heart attack shortly after the birth of their third child.

9.

Samuel Morse married his second wife, Sarah Elizabeth Griswold on August 10,1848, in Utica, New York and had four children.

10.

Samuel Morse expressed some of his Calvinist beliefs in his painting, Landing of the Pilgrims, through the depiction of simple clothing as well as the people's austere facial features.

11.

Samuel Morse's image captured the psychology of the Federalists; Calvinists from England brought to North America ideas of religion and government, thus linking the two countries.

12.

In England, Samuel Morse perfected his painting techniques under Allston's watchful eye; by the end of 1811, he gained admittance to the Royal Academy.

13.

Many American paintings throughout the early nineteenth century had religious themes, and Samuel Morse was an early exemplar of this.

14.

Judgment of Jupiter allowed Samuel Morse to express his support of Anti-Federalism while maintaining his strong spiritual convictions.

15.

Benjamin West sought to present the Jupiter at another Royal Academy exhibition, but Samuel Morse's time had run out.

16.

Samuel Morse left England on August 21,1815, to return to the United States and begin his full-time career as a painter.

17.

Samuel Morse painted the Federalist former President John Adams.

18.

Samuel Morse sought commissions among the elite of Charleston, South Carolina.

19.

Samuel Morse's 1818 painting of Mrs Emma Quash symbolized the opulence of Charleston.

20.

Between 1819 and 1821, Samuel Morse went through great changes in his life, including a decline in commissions due to the Panic of 1819.

21.

Samuel Morse was commissioned to paint President James Monroe in 1820.

22.

Samuel Morse embodied Jeffersonian democracy by favoring the common man over the aristocrat.

23.

Samuel Morse wished to select a uniquely American topic that would bring glory to the young nation.

24.

Samuel Morse's subject did just that, showing American democracy in action.

25.

Samuel Morse traveled to Washington DC to draw the architecture of the new Capitol and placed eighty individuals within the painting.

26.

Samuel Morse chose to portray a night scene, balancing the architecture of the Rotunda with the figures, and using lamplight to highlight the work.

27.

Samuel Morse chose nighttime to convey that Congress' dedication to the principles of democracy transcended day.

28.

Samuel Morse was honored to paint the Marquis de Lafayette, the leading French supporter of the American Revolution.

29.

Samuel Morse felt compelled to paint a grand portrait of the man who helped to establish a free and independent America.

30.

Samuel Morse has positioned Lafayette to the right of three pedestals: one has a bust of Benjamin Franklin, another of George Washington, and the third seems reserved for Lafayette.

31.

Samuel Morse served as the academy's president from 1826 to 1845 and again from 1861 to 1862.

32.

From 1830 to 1832, Samuel Morse traveled and studied in Europe to improve his painting skills, visiting Italy, Switzerland, and France.

33.

Samuel Morse completed the work upon his return to the United States.

34.

In 1832, after his return to the United States, Samuel Morse was appointed professor of painting and sculpture at the University of the City of New York, now New York University.

35.

Samuel Morse wrote a letter to the New York Observer describing the invention, which was published widely in the American press and provided broad awareness of the new technology.

36.

Samuel Morse set aside his painting, The Gallery of the Louvre.

37.

The original Samuel Morse telegraph, submitted with his patent application, is part of the collections of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution.

38.

Samuel Morse theorized that numerous small batteries were far more successful and efficient in this task.

39.

Samuel Morse encountered the problem of getting a telegraphic signal to carry over more than a few hundred yards of wire.

40.

Samuel Morse's breakthrough came from the insights of Professor Leonard Gale, who taught chemistry at New York University.

41.

Samuel Morse traveled to Washington, DC in 1838 seeking federal sponsorship for a telegraph line but was not successful.

42.

Samuel Morse went to Europe, seeking both sponsorship and patents, but in London discovered that Cooke and Wheatstone had already established priority.

43.

Samuel Morse made his last trip to Washington, DC, in December 1842, stringing "wires between two committee rooms in the Capitol, and sent messages back and forth" to demonstrate his telegraph system.

44.

Samuel Morse went to great lengths to win a lawsuit for the right to be called "inventor of the telegraph" and promoted himself as being an inventor.

45.

Samuel Morse received a patent for the telegraph in 1847, at the old Beylerbeyi Palace in Istanbul, which was issued by Sultan Abdulmecid, who personally tested the new invention.

46.

Samuel Morse was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1849.

47.

In 1856, Samuel Morse went to Copenhagen and visited the Thorvaldsens Museum, where the sculptor's grave is in the inner courtyard.

48.

Samuel Morse was received by King Frederick VII, who decorated him with the Order of the Dannebrog for the telegraph.

49.

Samuel Morse expressed his wish to donate his Thorvaldsen portrait from 1831 in Rome to the king.

50.

In 1858, Samuel Morse introduced wired communication to Latin America when he established a telegraph system in Puerto Rico, then a Spanish Colony.

51.

Samuel Morse was a leader in the anti-Catholic and anti-immigration movement of the mid-19th century.

52.

When Samuel Morse visited Rome, he allegedly refused to take his hat off in the presence of the Pope.

53.

Samuel Morse worked to unite Protestants against Catholic institutions, wanted to forbid Catholics from holding public office, and promoted changing immigration laws to limit immigration from Catholic countries.

54.

Samuel Morse wrote numerous letters to the New York Observer urging people to fight the perceived Catholic menace.

55.

However, in spite of this clear ruling, Samuel Morse still received no official recognition from the United States government.

56.

The O'Reilly v Morse case has become widely known among patent lawyers because the Supreme Court explicitly denied Morse's claim 8 for any and all use of the electromagnetic force for purposes of transmitting intelligible signals to any distance.

57.

The apparatus limitation in the former type of claim limited the patent monopoly to what Samuel Morse taught and gave the world.

58.

The problem that Morse faced and how he solved it is discussed in more detail in the article O'Reilly v Morse.

59.

Samuel Morse lent his support to Cyrus West Field's ambitious plan to construct the first transoceanic telegraph line.

60.

Samuel Morse invested $10,000 in Field's Atlantic Telegraph Company, took a seat on its board of directors, and was appointed honorary "Electrician".

61.

In 1856, Samuel Morse traveled to London to help Charles Tilston Bright and Edward Whitehouse test a 2,000-mile-length of spooled cable.

62.

Samuel Morse became interested in the relationship of science and religion and provided the funds to establish a lectureship on "the relation of the Bible to the Sciences".

63.

Samuel Morse died in New York City on April 2,1872, and was interred at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

64.

Samuel Morse was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1815.

65.

An engraved portrait of Samuel Morse appeared on the reverse side of the United States two-dollar bill silver certificate series of 1896.

66.

In 1848, Samuel Morse was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.

67.

In 1975, Samuel Morse was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

68.

Samuel Morse was honored on the US Famous Americans Series postal issue of 1940.