Tech Meets History

Instant messages and the first telegraph message

Today’s tech: messages that cross the country in a second

The history

On May 24, 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse sent the message “What hath God wrought?” by telegraph from the Supreme Court chamber in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., to his assistant Alfred Vail in Baltimore. Morse’s early system printed raised dots and dashes on a paper tape that an operator translated afterward. The Library of Congress still holds that outgoing tape.

The parallel

Texting feels new, but the big shift, words moving faster than any horse or train, happened in 1844. The telegraph also needed a code everyone agreed on, just like the protocols behind today’s messaging apps.

Talk about it

1. Morse’s message had to be decoded by a trained operator. Who or what does the decoding for a text message today?
2. In 1844 Morse wrote that telegraph users should be careful “not to give a partisan character” to the news they sent. Why might fast messages make that harder?
3. Try writing your name in Morse code. How long would a whole page take?

Sources

• Library of Congress: First telegraph message, 24 May 1844
• Library of Congress: Today in History, May 24
• Library of Congress: Invention of the Telegraph

Sources checked Oct 17, 2026.