Morse "Canvas-stretcher" telegraph receiver
date: label: Date made
content: 1837
name: label: maker
content: Morse, Samuel Finley Breese
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: This is Samuel F. B. Morse’s prototype telegraph receiver made in 1837. Morse (1791-1872), a painter of modest renown, reinvented himself by becoming an inventor. At age 41, returning from an art sojourn in Europe, Morse conceived of a way to send electric signals over a single wire: the telegraph. With the assistance of machinist Alfred Vail and others, Morse refined his ideas and made this proof-of-concept telegraph receiver using an artist’s canvas stretcher. After several years of refinements, Morse and Vail sent the famous message “What Hath God Wrought” over a line between Washington, DC and Baltimore, Maryland. Adopted by news organizations, the military, and railroads, the almost instantaneous nature of telegraphs revolutionized communications and helped create a sense of nationhood. Eventually ordinary people (if they could afford the fee) could send fast messages called telegrams to friends and family anywhere in the country.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The object consists of a wooden frame supporting a wooden clockwork mechanism, an electromagnet, a rocker arm, a hanging weight, and a roll of paper. The weight, hanging off the right side, powered the clockwork that pulled the strip of paper under the rocker arm. A second weight (not preserved) held tension on the paper. Electrical pulses from the transmitter activated the electromagnet that pulled the rocker arm to one side. A spring pulled the arm back away from the magnet when the power was off. A pencil mounted on the rocker arm drew a wavy line on the paper as the arm moved left or right and the paper passed underneath. The shape of the line represented the coded message.
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Electricity
label: See more items in
content: Communications
label: Exhibition
content: Inventing In America
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of the Western Union Telegraph Co.
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: EM.181250.01
label: catalog number
content: 181250.01
label: accession number
content: 31286
objectType: label: Object Name
content: telegraph receiver
label: Object Name
content: Telegraph Instrument
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 41 1/2 in x 39 1/4 in x 7 3/4 in; 105.41 cm x 99.695 cm x 19.685 cm