The invention of Morse code and the advent of German telegraphy

Samuel Morse was a successful painter when he was shown one of the first electromagnets in 1832. Inspired by what he'd seen, he constructed the first Morse telegraph in 1837.

In 1844, the US Congress financed the first telegraph line from New York to Baltimore—the triumphant march of Morse telegraphy had begun. Now people could get in touch with each other in an instant, regardless of distance.

The Morse code writer by Samuel Morse uses an electromagnet and stylus to record the signals received on a piece of paper. His colleague Alfred Vail developed the Morse code: a combination of dots and dashes for each letter of the alphabet.

The Robinsons were successful: in 1847–48, they sold 2 units each to the Hanoverian State Railroad, the Hamburg-Cuxhaven line, the Bremen-Bremerhaven line, and the Kingdom of Prussia for the Berlin-Cologne line. The Robinsons therefore played a pivotal role in establishing Germany's first telegraph lines.

When Charles Robinson became construction manager of the Hamburg-Cuxhaven telegraph line in 1847, he and his stepfather William sold 2 Morse code writers as samples to the operating company. Hamburg watchmaker Wilhelm Bröcking used their model to manufacture the remaining machines for the line.

Alfred Vail's original Morse alphabet consisted of characters and pauses of different lengths. However, these could not be seen well on a paper strip.

Friedrich Gerke, the supervisor of the first Morse telegraph line in Hamburg, changed this in 1849. His Morse alphabet consisted only of dots, dashes, and pauses, all of the same length. His version became the international standard in 1864.

American Morse code writers such as these came to Germany as samples. When William Robinson and his stepson Charles traveled to Hamburg in May 1847, they took 2 Morse writers with them from the Chubbuck workshop in Utica, NY.

This wood engraving from around 1850 shows a telegraphist sending a telegram using a telegraph key. Under the telegraph table was a box with 8 batteries, according to William Grove's design. These galvanic cells produced the current for the telegraph.

A galvanoscope was placed on the table behind the telegraph key to determine the approximate current. The writer pressed the Morse code onto the paper using a steel tip.

The telegraphists here are sitting in a lavishly furnished telegraph hall. The electrical wires were temporarily routed through the window.

Charles Robinson provided his expertise for the Prussian telegraph lines. He took over the training of telegraphists and sold 2 Morse code writers for use on the Berlin-Cologne line in 1848. His machines were used as prototypes, and the remaining telegraphs for the Prussian lines were manufactured by Siemens & Halske.

Werner Siemens was an engineer officer and member of the Prussian Telegraph Commission. Together with Johann Georg Halske, he founded a telegraph construction company in 1847. It initially built pointer telegraphs, but by launching the Morse telegraphs, Siemens & Halske became one of the largest electrical companies worldwide.

In 1850, Bavaria's first telegraph line was opened, running from Munich to Salzburg. In the same year, Munich was connected to 10 other Bavarian cities. The Morse code writers were provided by Siemens & Halske and complied with the Prussian machines that Siemens built according to Robinson's designs.

Around 1850, telegraph machines were mainly built by watchmakers, who were precise and had fine mechanical knowledge. Lorenz Bob, a well-known watchmaker from the Black Forest, provided the Morse code telegraphs for the Baden State Telegraph Line which opened in 1851.

In the beginning, telegrams, which were still quite expensive, were used to make travel arrangements. Telegrams made it possible to announce changes to travel plans or arrival times en route—and the message would arrive before you reached your destination! This would have been impossible to achieve using snail mail.

Karl Geiger built the first pointer telegraph for the Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt-Esslingen railroad. In 1851, the Würtemberg telegraphs were converted to Morse code writers. Geiger—who became a telegraph inspector—supplied these machines.

This woodcut provides a relatively realistic insight into the workplace of a telegraphist in the early 1850s, when the Morse telegraph was an established medium.

Cross-border telegraph connections required standardization. The Austrian-German Telegraph Union, founded in 1850, made the Morse telegraph mandatory, allowing manufacturers such as Bénèche & Wasserlein to enter the growing market.

This telegram bears the number 97 and was posted in Vienna on January 18, 1853 at 5:26 p.m. and received on the same day at 5:31 p.m. in Leipzig. The recipient was the steel trader W.W. Derham in Leipzig. The text reads: "Brandeis will be coming from Dresden tomorrow evening, he is expecting you on the train."

Portable stations were not only useful for solving issues, but also for military communications. Telegraphy revolutionized warfare, as it meant rear commanders could control mobile troops much more easily, for example, in the American Civil War and German Unification Wars.

In just a few years, a complex telegraph network had been established in Germany that not only connected most cities, but extended across the whole of Europe.

The Prussian central telegraph office in Berlin was an important hub where the wires of 26 lines converged.

In the second half of the 19th century, telegraphy became a cutting-edge technology with far-reaching effects on the economy and on society—just like smartphones and the Internet are having today.

For the first time in history, real-time communication was possible—even across countries and continents. Therefore, telegraphy was also an important part of teaching in schools. Everyone was encouraged and required to understand how a telegraph worked and how the Morse alphabet was put together.