The Telegraph

Communicators owe a great debt to Samuel F. B.Morse. When Morris invented the telegraph in 1838, he introduced a communication tool that proved to be a major force in bringing people together, making the world smaller, and enabling news and information to be shared with more people at a faster rate than ever before. The telegraph was revolutionary and Morse is the guy we have to thank for it. In our current world of the Internet, Facebook, twitter, blogging, etc., there may be a tendency to minimize the significance of the telegraph. Compared to our modern technologies, the telegraph may seem quaint at best. Still, it is my hope it is never viewed in this manner.

In the years following the Civil War, the United States experienced a great economic boom. Businesses at the helm of many of the great corporate titans in our nation's history, including John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, J. P. Morgan  and others, were able to spread their innovative spirit and financial outreach across the United States. They created employment opportunities and served as proponents of the American dream. This expansion was due in no small measure to the telegraph. In fact, it was the telegraph that represented the first rung in the creation of America's national communication infrastructure.

2013 will mark the 175th birthday of the telegraph. That milestone needs to be recognized. It brought our country closer together by providing us with the ability to communicate like never before.  Thirty-eight years after the telegraph, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, an innovation equally as revolutionary as the telegraph. But with all due respect to Bell, I consider the telephone to be an off-spring of the telegraph. The telegraph was the original connector. It was the original bridge that began connecting our nation and its great diversity in ways unheard of till then. It unleashed a flow of information exchange that continues to this day.