Samuel F B Morse in 1857
Toronto. Samuel F B Morse was both an artist (painter), and teacher. Closely involved with the North American telegraph, his name lives on as the co-inventor of the Morse Code. This a code known to telegraphers and amateur radio operators alike.
Morse is also famous (or should be) to photographers. Morse happened to be in Paris in 1839 after Daguerre made his iconic presentation via M Arago. Being an artist, Morse was fascinated with the concept of ‘light painting’. So much so that he met Daguerre in person and later wrote to his younger brother’s newspaper, the “New York Observer“, promoting the Daguerreotype concept in North America helping to raise awareness of that most famous of photographic processes. Caution: much of the linked article for the New York Observer addresses the later use of the name as a newspaper associated with Donald Trump, not it’s original newspaper name (long ended) which was association with the Morse family.
So the next time you hear/see the name ‘Samuel Morse’, think photography as well as telegraph!
