Samuel Morse

inventor · communication · American history · clever codes

Painter first. Before he became famous for inventions, Samuel Morse was a successful portrait painter who painted important people and created beautiful artwork.

Telegraph inventor. In middle age, Morse helped develop a telegraph system that could send messages through wires across long distances using electricity.

Morse code creator. Morse created a brilliant code in 1837 using dots and dashes (called dits and dahs) to represent letters and numbers, so telegraph machines could send messages in a new way.

Dots and dashes. In Morse code, each letter gets its own pattern of short signals (dots) and long signals (dashes), so an 'A' is one dot and one dash while an 'S' is three dots.

Changed communication. Morse's inventions helped people send messages almost instantly across America and around the world, making the telegraph the first fast way to communicate over long distances.