Inventing The Telegraph
In 1845, Morse employed Andrew Jackson’s former postmaster general, Amos Kendall, as his agent in finding potential patrons of the telegraph. Kendall realized the value of the gadget, and had little bother convincing others of its potential for profit. By the spring he had attracted a small group of buyers. They subscribed $15,000 and formed the Magnetic Telegraph Company. Many new telegraph corporations have been formed as Morse bought licenses wherever he might.
Till the telegraph was invented in the 1830s, there was merely no strategy to spread information quickly so native papers just reported local information. Even after the telegraph was invented, though, there were nonetheless limits on how quickly information could be relayed. A message needed to be composed by the sender, sent in Morse code (which taps out each letter individually) by the telegraph operator, and interpreted and written down by the receiving telegraph operator who then … Read the rest