The Telegraph which was developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Samuel Morse (1791-1872) and other inventors, revolutionized long-distance communication. It worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations. In addition to helping invent the telegraph, Samuel Morse developed a code (bearing his name) that assigned a set of dots and dashes to each letter of the English alphabet and allowed for the simple transmission of complex messages across telegraph lines. In 1844, Morse sent his first telegraph message from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland. By 1866 a telegraph line had been laid across the Atlantic Ocean from the U.S. to Europe. In the late 1800s, telegraph lines cris-crossed our country and became the backbone of long distance communications. By the early 1900s with the invention of the telephone, telegraph lines became of less importance and eventually faded out of use. Yet the Morse Code continued to be used with newly developed radio transmitters. Eventually voice transmissions by radio was developed but Morse Code (CW) was the mode that could be the most understandable considering the challenges of receiving radio transmissions due to atmospheric interferences and limitations. CW was an important mode for ship to shore and military communications through WW2 and up to the 1990s until advent of Microwave, Fax and Satellite communications took over. We can say that today’s Internet is the direct result of the pioneering earlier forms of communication including telegraphy.
Today CW is still used and revered by amateur radio operators and there are thousands of hams worldwide still very proficient in this skill.
Morse Code use throughout the 20th century is aptly presented in the following article: THE CODE LIVES ON