Can You Hear Me Now · Episode 4 of 14 · 25 min
What Hath God Wrought
On May 1, 1844 news of Henry Clay's nomination reached the Capitol by wire about an hour before the train that left with it. Three weeks later Samuel Morse sent What hath God wrought, breaking the link between a message's speed and its carrier's. The episode follows the government's test line, railroads, the Pony Express and the rise of Western Union and the Associated Press, then asks who owned the wire and the news.
Who's who
- Samuel Morse+1 more episodePainter turned telegraph inventor who sent the first official message in 1844
- Alfred Vail+1 more episodeMachinist who refined the apparatus and sent the Clay news
- Ezra CornellBuilt the first overhead line and later helped found Western Union
- Annie EllsworthCredited by Morse with choosing the words of the first message
- Joseph HenryPhysicist whose work on relays the practical telegraph depended on
- Cave JohnsonPostmaster General who opened the government's line to the public in 1845
- Jay GouldFinancier who gained control of Western Union in 1881
- Sarah Bagley+1 more episodeLabor organizer described as the nation's first female telegraph operator
Where it happens
- Washington, D.C.+31 more episodesCapitol end of the first Morse line
- Baltimore, Maryland+5 more episodesOther end of the 1844 test line
- Morristown, New JerseySpeedwell Iron Works, where Vail refined the apparatus
- Rochester, New YorkWhere the company that became Western Union was founded
- Sacramento, California+4 more episodesWestern end of the Pony Express
Timeline
- June 20, 1840Morse receives United States patent number 1,647
- May 24, 1844What hath God wrought is sent from Washington to Baltimore
- May 1846Five New York newspapers form the Associated Press
- October 24, 1861The transcontinental telegraph is completed; the Pony Express ends two days later
- July 1883About eight thousand telegraphers strike Western Union and other companies
- January 27, 2006Western Union delivers its last telegrams in the United States
Still debated
Historians argue over how much of the dot-and-dash code was Vail's, and many people have documented claims to parts of the telegraph. Whether the Western Union and Associated Press alliance biased the news, as in the 1876 election, is an interpretation others dispute.
