Telegraph

=The Telegraph=

toc Samuel F. B. Morse was accredited for the invention the telegraph in 1837. There were different models before the electromagnet telegraph, but this model was the used model. In order to use the telegraph, you must send your message in Morse code, a series of short or long breaks in an electric connection, which represent letters. This system of communication was invented by Samuel Morse. Like today's telephone wires, the telegraph needed to be connected by cables, which could stretch anywhere in the nation, and later over the Atlantic Ocean. The use of the telegraph ended due to the invention of the telephone, but this early advance in communication lead to newer and better technology.

Life before the Telegraph
Before the invention of the telegraph there were no quick means of communication over very long distances. If you needed to receive a message you could hear it from a messenger or town crier, or read it in a letter or newspaper. This was not practical for long distances, especially if you needed to reach someone overseas. Before the telegraph there was no official postal system, and letters became more unreliable the further away it got. Letters were often lost or the messengers were hurt by people on the way like Indians, animals or thieves. Sailing took about 4 months to deliver mail, and stagecoaches took from 11 to 25 days.

The Sender
In order to send a message you needed to be trained and you had to know Morse code. Since most people didn't know Morse code, they went to a telegraph operating station and dictated their message to the operator. In the electromagnet telegraph, when the key was tapped an electric current, which was running through wires that were connected to the receiver, was cut on and provided electricity for the electromagnet on the other side. A combination of holding the key down for a long or short time made the symbols of Morse code.

The Receiver
Like the sender, the receiver also had to be trained to receive a message. An electromagnet rang a bell so the receiver could watch the message come in. The magnet also moved a pen up and down onto a moving piece of paper. When the key was tapped, it provided electricity so the magnet could ring the bell and move the pen onto the message paper. Originally translators decoded the message after the message was printed. Around 1850 the message was translated as the dots and dashes came in.

How Its All Connected
Telegraph lines opened first in Great Britain in 1837. They then opened in the United States in 1844. Before the transcontinental railroad was finished, the transcontinental telegraph line was done in 1861. This connected California to the east coast. In 1866 a bigger endeavor was started. Now that they could communicate all over the nation, we needed to be able to telegraph with the rest of the world, mainly England and France. So a huge ship called //The Great Eastern// helped lay permanent cables across the Atlantic Ocean. The way a telegraph works is that an electric current is sent from the sender though the wires that connected to the receiver. When the two metal parts of the key touched the electricity ran through the wire, when the metal parts were release there was no electricity. Because of all the telegraphs in America, there needed to be many wires connecting all of them. Messages could only be received where there were telegraph cables. In the early years of the telegraph, there were not many cables, but after a few years cables connected even very small villages.

The End of the Telegraph
The telegraph was just the beginning of the communications revolution. . The telegraph was the only long distance fast communication at the time, until 1877, when the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell. The telephone could be owned by anyone, and needed no training to use it. The telephone was much more advanced than the telegraph. The telegraph could only be used by the few people who were trained, but the telephone could be used by anyone. Other countries didn't know American Morse Code, so when communicating with other nations we had to switch between International and American Morse Codes. When the telephone was first invented it had many flaws, so some people stuck with the telegraph, but when the telephone was improved the telegraph was soon forgotten in 1915.