American painter and inventor born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, who gained notoriety around the world after designing a signal system known as Morse code, which made practical use of the Telegraph. Graduated from Yale College, where he became interested in electricity, a phenomenon little understood until then, and in painting miniature portraits. Initially dedicated to the Arts and interested in romantic and historical paintings, he studied painting and drawing in the United Kingdom (1809-1815), but on his return he took up portraits and produced masterpieces of the genre, in which he combined technique with the daring of representing his models with the touch of romanticism learned in the Europe.
He founded the National Academy of Design and was its first president (1826-1845). Enthusiastic about the discovery of electromagnets, he decided to devote himself to the study of telegraphic transmission, having presented his first equipment (1837) in New York City. Investing in the improvement of his apparatus, the telegraph, he completed the work of elaborating the Morse code (1838) and began his experiments with underwater telegraph cables (1942). He obtained financial resources from the US Congress to install the first telegraph line, which connected Baltimore to Washington (1843), transmitting his first message: What hath God wrought! (1844).
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From then on, a long legal struggle followed with its partners for patent rights, the dispute of which ended when the Supreme Court of the United States won the case (1854). His invention began to pay him cash dividends (1958) when he managed to sell his telegraph system to others. countries, including Austria, Belgium, France, Norway, Russia, Sweden and Turkey, making it famous throughout the world and enriching it. He died in New York, New York.
Figure copied from the UNIV website. TEXAS / PORTRAIT GALERY:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/photodraw/portraits/
Source: Biographies - Academic Unit of Civil Engineering / UFCG
Order S - Biography - Brazil School
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
COSTA, Keilla Renata. "Samuel Finley Breese Morse"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/biografia/samuel-finley-breese.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.