Episode Details

Before he gave the world the telegraph and Morse code, Samuel Morse spent the first half of his life trying to become America's greatest painter. This deep dive follows a strict Calvinist upbringing, grand canvases that failed to draw paying crowds, and a fateful 1832 conversation aboard the ship Sully that turned an artist into an inventor.

We break down how a single wire, an electromagnet, and timed pulses compressed language into dots and dashes, and why collaborators Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail and their relay system were essential. We also examine the Supreme Court case that still shapes software patents today, and confront Morse's nativist, anti-Catholic, and pro-slavery views alongside his drive for order and control.

• How Morse's ambitious painting of the House of Representatives flopped with the public
• How counting printer's type led to assigning the letter E a single dot
• Why relays solved the distance problem and how a $30,000 congressional grant built the Washington to Baltimore line
• How O'Reilly v. Morse stopped him from patenting electromagnetism itself, a precedent used for software today
• His failed 1836 run for New York mayor, his political writings, and the international honors he later received