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 showing that the Morse telegraph had a surprisingly immense influence 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.
A. CORRECT. 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).
B. Incorrect. The map shows the distance the line covers; it does not indicate Morse’s lack of foresight in seeking patents only in North America.
C. Incorrect. 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.
D. Incorrect. While it can be inferred that the telegraph had influence across the world, the amount of influence cannot be determined.
Question analysis
This question pairs “Invention of the Telegraph” with a map of the British All-Red Telegraph Line in 1902 and asks how the map adds support for a central idea of the passage. Students must read a world map with a key and a caption, connect what it shows to the story of Samuel Morse’s invention, and sort through four claims about the map that vary in how far they go.
- Grade level
- Grade 8 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Linking a graphic to a text is familiar grade 7 work. Here students must pin down a central idea of the passage and work out how a 1902 world map, made decades after Morse’s first line, bears on it, a step beyond 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, 75 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
Lines on a map can prove how far the telegraph reached, and the question turns on how much more than that each choice claims. The key depends on a link back to paragraph 1, where a message went only as far as the next hilltop tower, read many minutes before the map. The influence choice skips that link and states the map’s message in bigger terms, so students who do not ask what a map of routes can show are drawn to it.
A very close wrong answer major Choosing the answer
The influence choice, a telegraph with “a surprisingly immense influence across the world,” sounds like a fair reading of lines circling the globe; it differs from the key in claiming impact and surprise rather than reach beyond earlier systems. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987; Gorin & Embretson, 2006; Ascalon et al., 2007)
Evidence in several places moderate Working it out
The earlier systems the key measures against are in paragraph 1, towers on distant hills passing flag and light signals from station to station, far from the map at the end of the passage. (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 to Canada and Vancouver, south through Bermuda and Barbados to Cape Town, and on to India, Australia and New Zealand, with Washington left unconnected. (Lesh, Post & Behr, 1987; Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990)
Strategy: Look at what the map and its caption actually show, sum up a central idea of the passage in your own words, and keep only a choice that both of them back up.
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)
Reads the unconnected Washington dot as a patenting mistake of Morse’s, though a map of lines shows nothing about patents and paragraph 5 has him seeking protection overseas.
C Reads too much in (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Remembers that Gale’s relay advice solved Morse’s “distance problems,” but a 1902 map that names no inventors cannot prove what that advice made possible decades earlier.
D Too broad or too strong (King et al., 2004)
Turns the map’s reach into a claim about impact, though routes on a map show where messages could travel, not how much the world changed or that anyone was surprised.
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 question asks how a graphic adds to the passage. You need two things. First, what does the map really show? Second, which central idea, a main point the whole passage builds, does it back up?
Read the map and its caption
This map is a picture of one British network of telegraph wires, as it stood in 1902. In its key, a thick black line stands for an electric telegraph line. From London, a line crosses the Atlantic Ocean and Canada to Vancouver. Other lines reach Bermuda, Barbados, Cape Town, India, Australia and New Zealand. According to the caption, by 1902 this network “connected most of the world.”
Recall the older ways of signaling
Next, compare that with paragraph 1. Before electricity, people signaled with flags or lights. An observer would “decipher a signal from a high tower on a distant hill and then send it on to the next station.” So a message could only jump as far as a person could see. Even Morse’s first line, in paragraph 6, reached Baltimore, just “forty miles away.”
Connect the map to that idea
The caption says the first message across the Atlantic was sent in 1858. Only 44 years later, in 1902, lines crossed several oceans and linked much of the globe. Paragraph 8 adds that telegraph lines “connected the continents of Europe and America” before Morse died. So the map supports a central idea: electric telegraph lines went far beyond the reach of older signal systems.
Check each choice
- A fits. Lines that span oceans go far past the limits of hilltop towers.
- B does not fit. A map of lines shows nothing about patents. Also, paragraph 5 says Morse sought patent protection in Europe, too.
- C does not fit. The map names no inventors, so it cannot prove what Gale’s advice did decades before.
- D does not fit. The map shows where lines went, not how much they changed the world, and nothing on it shows surprise.
Choose the answer
The map shows telegraph lines reaching around the globe, far past what flags and towers could do. So the answer is A.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
D is the closest trap, because lines around the world seem to prove a huge effect. But a map of routes shows only how far messages could travel. It cannot measure influence, and it cannot show that anyone was surprised. A sticks to what a map of lines can prove: the telegraph reached much farther than earlier systems.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Invention of the Telegraph” as printed (pages 146–148)
