·Samuel Morse Decoded Smithsonian National Museum of American History 05.10.2016 – 09.12.2016
·Foreword
n American inventor, Samuel F. B. Morse, wowed the American public when he sent the biblical message “What hath God wrought?” by telegraph, from the Supreme Court room in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. to Baltimore on May 24, 1844. Seventeen years later, telegraph lines spanned the entire country. Then, by 1866, a cable was laid across the Atlantic Ocean. But lesser known is Morse’s earlier attempt at connecting North America and Europe—through his art, in a painting called Gallery of the Louvre. Before Morse was an inventor, he was an artist. A Massachusetts native, he graduated from Yale in 1810 and went on to study art, first in Boston under the painter Washington Allston and then in London at the Royal Academy of Arts. He received some acclaim for an 8- by 6-foot painting called Dying Hercules, depicting the muscular mythical hero, back arched and hand grasping the poisoned robe that killed him. But when Morse returned to the United States in 1815, Americans did not have a taste for such large history paintings. He considered Americans’ taste, actually, to be quite unrefined. At the time, there were few art museums in the country. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art wouldn’t open until 1872 and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1876.) And, since most Americans did not travel to Europe, their exposure to art by Old Master painters, such as Titian, Rubens, da Vinci and Veronese, was limited to hack copies.
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Afterword
t was while working on the portrait of Lafayette that Morse suffered the personal tragedy that changed his life forever. In Washington, D.C., for the commission, Morse received a letter from his father delivered via the standard, slow-moving horse messengers of the day that his wife was gravely ill. Morse immediately left the capital and raced to his Connecticut home. By the time he arrived, however, his wife was not only dead—she had already been buried. It is believed that the griefstricken Morse, devastated that it had taken days for him to receive the initial notification of his wife’s illness, shifted his focus away from his art career and instead dedicated himself to improving long-distance communication. Morse Code is still widely recognized, even if it is not as widely used as it once was. Morse code is still popular among amateur radio enthusiasts. Morse Code is most prevalent in Aviation and Aeronautical fields since radio navigational aids such as VOR's and NDB's still identify in Morse Code. The US Navy and Coast Guard still use signal lamps to communicate via Morse Code. Morse Code has also been used as an alternative form of communication for people with disabilities or whom have their abilities to communicate imparied by stroke, heart attack, or paralysis. There have been several cases where individuals have been able to use their eyelids to communicate in Morse Code by using a series of long and quick blinks to represent the dots and dashes.
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International Morse Code 1. A dash is equivalent to three dots. 2. The space between parts of the same letter is equal to one dot. 3. The space between two letters is equal to three dots. 4. The space between two words is equal to seven dots.
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