Passage Invention of the Telegraph
Samuel Morse, an American inventor, is credited with creating the electronic telegraph, a communication device that allows users to send messages using a system of short and long pulses that represent letters, numbers, and punctuation. In 1843 the United States Congress passed the Telegraph Bill, which provided Morse with the funds to build an electric telegraph system.
Invention of the Telegraph
Earlier Signal Systems
Long before Samuel F. B. Morse electrically transmitted his famous message “What hath God wrought?” from Washington to Baltimore on May 24, 1844, there were signaling systems that enabled people to communicate over distances. Most were visual or “semaphore” systems using flags or lights. In the eighteenth century, such systems used an observer who would decipher a signal from a high tower on a distant hill and then send it on to the next station. The young American republic wanted just such a system along its entire Atlantic coast and offered a prize of $30,000 for a workable proposal. The framers of this legislation had no way of knowing that when they used the word “telegraph” to refer to this visual semaphore system, they would be offered an entirely new and revolutionary means of communication—electricity.
The Growth of an Idea
The idea of using electricity to communicate over distance is said to have occurred to Morse during a conversation aboard ship when he was returning from Europe in 1832. Michael Faraday’s recently invented electromagnet was much discussed by the ship’s passengers, and when Morse came to understand how it worked, he speculated that it might be possible to send a coded message over a wire. While a student at Yale College years before, he had written his parents a letter about how interesting he found the lectures on electricity. Despite what he had learned at Yale, Morse found when he began to develop his idea that he had little real understanding of the nature of electricity, and after sporadic attempts to work with batteries, magnets, and wires, he finally turned for help to a colleague at the University of the City of New York, Leonard D. Gale.
Gale was a professor of chemistry and familiar with the electrical work of Princeton’s Joseph Henry, a true pioneer in the new field. Well before Morse had his shipboard idea about a telegraph, Henry rang a bell at a distance by opening and closing an electric circuit. In 1831, he had published an article, of which Morse was unaware, that contained details suggesting the idea of an electric telegraph. Gale’s help and his knowledge of this article proved crucial to Morse’s telegraph system because Gale not only pointed out flaws in the system but showed Morse how he could regularly boost the strength of a signal and overcome the distance problems he had encountered by using a relay system Henry had invented. Henry’s experiments, Gale’s assistance, and, soon after, hiring the young technician Alfred Vail were keys to Morse’s success.
Obstacles and Opportunities
By December 1837, Morse had enough confidence in his new system to apply for the federal government’s appropriation, and during the next year he conducted demonstrations of his telegraph both in New York and Washington.
However, when the economic disaster known as the Panic of 1837 took hold of the nation and caused a long depression, Morse was forced to wait for better times. It was during this period that Morse visited Europe again and tried not only to secure patent protection overseas but to examine competing telegraph systems in England. . . .
By 1843, the country was beginning to recover economically, and Morse again asked Congress for the $30,000 that would allow him to build a telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore, forty miles away. The House of Representatives eventually passed the bill containing the Morse appropriation, and the Senate approved it in the final hours of that Congress’s last session. With President Tyler’s signature, Morse received the cash he needed and began to carry out plans for an underground telegraph line.
Realizing a Great Invention
Morse had hired the ingenious construction engineer Ezra Cornell to lay the pipe carrying the wire, and although Cornell did his job superbly, one of Morse’s partners, Congressman F. O. J. Smith, had purchased wire with defective insulation. Too much time had been wasted laying bad wire, and with the project on a rigid deadline, something had to be done quickly. Cornell suggested that the fastest and cheapest way of connecting Washington and Baltimore was to string wires overhead on trees and poles. The desperate Morse gave the go-ahead, and the line was completed in time for the dramatic and spectacularly successful link between the Supreme Court chamber of the Capitol building and the railroad station in Baltimore.
Soon, as overhead wires connected cities up and down the Atlantic coast, the dots-and-dashes method that recorded messages on a long moving strip of paper was replaced by the operator’s ability to interpret the code in real time. . . . Telegraph lines soon extended westward, and within Morse’s own lifetime they connected the continents of Europe and America.
“Invention of the Telegraph”—Public Domain/Library of Congress
legislation: Telegraph Bill
dots-and-dashes method: the short and long pulses of Morse code that are sent and received by telegraph operators
The first transatlantic electric telegraph message was sent in 1858, and by 1902 the British All-Red Line connected most of the world.
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Part 2. Washington, D.C., 1975.
Question
How does the map provide additional support for a central idea of the passage?
- Aby demonstrating that Morse’s telegraph system greatly exceeded the limitations of previous long-distance communication systems
- Bby indicating that Morse was lacking foresight by seeking a patent only in North America
- Cby proving that Gale’s advice helped Morse extend the telegraph’s range much farther than first thought possible
- Dby providing a graphic that shows the surprisingly immense influence Morse’s telegraph had across the world
Show the answer
Correct answer: A
The question asks how the map provides additional support for a central idea of the passage. The map shows the telegraph line crossing continents in 1902, just forty-four years after the first transatlantic message was sent in 1858. This is a much greater distance than the first line Morse built between “the Supreme Court chamber of the Capitol building and the railroad station in Baltimore” (paragraph 7), making Option A correct.
Option B is incorrect because the map shows the distance the line covers; it does not indicate Morse’s lack of foresight in seeking patents only in North America.
Option C is incorrect because, while Gale’s advice was crucial to Morse’s success, the map shows the physical line stretching across continents many years later, after their initial work.
Option D is incorrect because, while it can be inferred that the telegraph had influence across the world, the amount of influence cannot be determined.
Question analysis
This question asks how a map that accompanies “Invention of the Telegraph” supports a central idea of the passage about Samuel Morse’s invention. Students must link the information in a map to the passage’s main point, and choices that sound alike differ in how much they claim, so careful reading of each one decides it.
- Grade level
- Grade 8 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Connecting a map to a central idea is grade 7 work, but this one requires tying a visual to the whole passage and weighing choices that differ by a single word or claim, which pushes it above typical demand.
- Estimated difficulty
- Hard: combines ideas, needs a plan, and has more than one tempting wrong answer.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 3, strategic thinking · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- A very close wrong answer major
- Evidence in several places moderate
- Reading a figure, table or graph moderate
- Evidence
- Answered from the whole text
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 11, 910 words; question and choices: about grade 11, 77 words.
- Corrected from the DOE handbook
- An inaccurate detail in the explanation was corrected.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
Two choices describe the map’s reach in nearly the same terms, and the difference is in what each claims the map proves. A map of lines can show distance covered, which outruns the hilltop towers of paragraph 1, but it cannot measure influence or reveal surprise. Students lose time because the right choice depends on a paragraph read many minutes earlier.
A very close wrong answer major Choosing the answer
The choice about the telegraph’s “surprisingly immense influence” sounds like a fair reading of a map spanning five continents and differs from the key mainly in claiming influence rather than reach. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987; Gorin & Embretson, 2006; Ascalon et al., 2007)
Evidence in several places moderate Working it out
The previous systems are in paragraph 1, towers on hills relaying flag and light signals, far from the map at the end of the passage, and the two must be compared. (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990; Gorin & Embretson, 2006)
Reading a figure, table or graph moderate Understanding the question
The map shows a 1902 British line from London across the Atlantic to Canada, south to Bermuda, Barbados and Cape Town, and on to India, Australia and New Zealand, with Washington left off it. (Lesh, Post & Behr, 1987; Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990)
Strategy: First state the passage’s central idea in a sentence, then ask which choice describes something a map of telegraph lines could actually show that also fits that idea.
Traps
- Too broad or too strong: A choice overstates, generalizes, or uses absolute words the text does not support.
- Reads too much in: A reasonable-sounding conclusion that goes further than the text allows.
The wrong answers, classified
B Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Seizes on the unconnected Washington dot as a failure of Morse’s, though paragraph 5 says he sought patent protection overseas and a map of lines shows nothing about patents.
C Reads too much in (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Recalls that Gale’s relay advice solved Morse’s “distance problems,” but a map of lines built decades later cannot prove what Gale’s advice made possible.
D Too broad or too strong (King et al., 2004)
Overstates what the map shows: the lines prove how far the telegraph reached by 1902, not how much it changed the world or that the change was surprising.
What was corrected from the DOE handbook, and why
- Explanation: The handbook says the 1902 line came “forty-four years after the first message was sent in 1858.” The first telegraph message was Morse’s in 1844 (paragraph 1); 1858 is the year of the first transatlantic message, as the map’s caption says. The site now says “the first transatlantic message.”
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This asks how the map supports a central idea, or main message, of the passage. You need two things: what the map actually shows, and which big idea of the passage it backs up.
Read the map and its caption
The map shows the British All-Red Telegraph Line in 1902. A thick black line stands for telegraph wire. It runs from London across the Atlantic Ocean to Canada and on to Vancouver. It also goes to Bermuda, Barbados and Cape Town. Then it crosses the Indian Ocean to India, Australia and New Zealand. The caption says that by 1902 the line “connected most of the world.”
Compare it with earlier systems
Now look back at paragraph 1. Earlier systems used flags or lights. An observer had to “decipher a signal from a high tower on a distant hill and then send it on to the next station.” Decipher means figure out. Those signals only worked if you could see the next tower. The line on the map crosses whole oceans. That shows how far the new system went past the old limits.
Check each choice
- A fits. Lines across oceans go far past towers on hills.
- B is wrong. A map of wires shows nothing about patents. Paragraph 5 even says Morse tried to get patents overseas.
- C is wrong. The map is from 1902, long after Gale helped. It can’t prove what his advice did.
- D is wrong. The map shows how far the lines reached, not how much they changed lives. It also can’t show that anything was surprising.
Choose the answer
The map shows wires circling the globe, far beyond hilltop flags and lights. So the answer is A, “by demonstrating that Morse’s telegraph system greatly exceeded the limitations of previous long-distance communication systems.”
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
D is the closest trap, because the map does cover the world. But a map of lines shows reach, meaning how far something goes. Influence means how much it changed people’s lives, and a map can’t measure that. A claims only what the map can show: distance far past the old towers.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Invention of the Telegraph” as printed (pages 146–148)
