The Selling Of Samuel Morse

塞缪尔·莫尔斯的出卖

· American Heritage · 原文

In February 1837, Treasury Secretary Levi Woodbury called for information from the “most intelligent sources” to help prepare a report to Congress on the propriety of establishing a “system of telegraphs” for the United States.

1837 年 2 月，财政部长利维·伍德伯里 (Levi Woodbury) 呼吁从“最聪明的来源”获取信息，以帮助准备一份向国会提交的报告，说明为美国建立“电报系统”是否合适。

Of the 18 responses he received, 17 assumed that the telegraph would be optical and its motive power human.

在他收到的 18 条回复中，有 17 条认为电报是光学的，其动力是人力的。

The only respondent to envision a different operating force was Samuel F.

唯一设想建立不同作战部队的受访者是塞缪尔·F·肯尼迪 (Samuel F.

Morse, a painter turned professor long intrigued by the moral implications of technical advance; he proposed instead a new kind of telegraph of his own devising that would transmit information by electrical impulses carried by wire.

莫尔斯是一位画家，后来成为一名教授，长期以来对技术进步的道德含义很感兴趣。相反，他提出了一种自己设计的新型电报机，可以通过电线携带的电脉冲传输信息。

Woodbury’s request inspired Morse to build a demonstration project, which he completed in May 1844 in the form of a 40-mile line between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.

伍德伯里的请求启发莫尔斯建造了一个示范项目，他于 1844 年 5 月完成了该项目，在华盛顿特区和巴尔的摩之间修建了一条 40 英里长的线路。

Congress funded the effort with an award of $30,000.

国会为这项工作提供了 30,000 美元的资助。

It was not the first of its kind: by May 1844 the British telegraph promoters Charles Wheatstone and William F.

这并不是此类事件中的第一例：到 1844 年 5 月，英国电报发起人查尔斯·惠斯通 (Charles Wheatstone) 和威廉·F.

Cooke had installed special-purpose electric telegraphs on several railroads in Great Britain.

库克在英国的几条铁路上安装了专用电报机。

But the Washington-Baltimore line was the first electric telegraph in the United States; following its transfer to the Post Office Department in 1845, it became the first electrical communications medium in the world open to the public on a fee-for-service basis.

但华盛顿-巴尔的摩线路是美国第一条电报； 1845 年移交给邮局后，它成为世界上第一个以收费服务方式向公众开放的电子通信媒介。

Although the future disposition of Morse’s invention remained uncertain, it was hailed from the outset as an epochal technical advance, destined to have vast consequences for American business, politics, and public life.

尽管莫尔斯发明的未来处置仍不确定，但它从一开始就被誉为划时代的技术进步，注定会对美国商业、政治和公共生活产生巨大影响。

The history of Morse’s demonstration project offers a case study in the unanticipated consequences of technological innovation.

莫尔斯示范项目的历史为技术创新的意外后果提供了案例研究。

Morse had neither the inclination nor the temperament to scale up his original undertaking into a spatially extensive network.

莫尔斯既没有意愿也没有脾气将他最初的事业扩大到一个空间广泛的网络。

Rather, he conceived of himself as an inventor who owned the rights to a valuable creation granted him by the Patent Office in 1840.

相反，他将自己视为一名发明家，拥有专利局于 1840 年授予他的一项有价值的创作的权利。

He believed he could sell these rights to Congress, and that his technology would become the first link in an extensive communication network run by the Post Office Department.

他相信他可以将这些权利出售给国会，并且他的技术将成为邮局部门运营的广泛通信网络中的第一个链接。

It may seem counterintuitive today that an inventor who held the rights to an invention widely acclaimed as a powerful agent of change would try to sell them to the nation so that invention might be commercialized by a federal agency.

如今，一位发明家拥有一项广受赞誉的强大变革推动者的发明权，却试图将其出售给国家，以便联邦机构将发明商业化，这在今天看来似乎有悖常理。

Yet a congressional buyout had the support not only of Morse, but also of his primary financial backers; the patent commissioner; several of the country’s most influential newspapers; and a smattering of lawmakers, including the 1844 Whig presidential contender, Henry Clay.

然而，国会的收购不仅得到了莫尔斯的支持，还得到了他的主要财务支持者的支持。专利专员；该国几家最有影响力的报纸；以及少数立法者，包括 1844 年辉格党总统候选人亨利·克莱 (Henry Clay)。

Only after Morse had failed to sell his rights to Congress would the telegraph become a quintessentially private enterprise.

只有在莫尔斯未能将其权利出售给国会之后，电报公司才成为一家典型的私营企业。

This was an eventuality that Morse had worked to forestall for almost a decade and that would continue to trouble thoughtful critics of the telegraph business from the 1840s until the First World War.

近十年来，莫尔斯一直在努力预防这种可能发生的情况，从 1840 年代到第一次世界大战，这种情况一直困扰着电报业深思熟虑的批评家。

For over 75 years, American Heritage has chronicled our nation's history like no other publication.

75 年来，《美国遗产》以无与伦比的方式记录了我们国家的历史。

Please support our trusted, non-partisan historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it by donating today.

请通过今天的捐赠来支持我们值得信赖的、无党派的历史写作以及维持它的志愿者。

We rely on contributions from readers like you to survive.

我们依靠像您这样的读者的贡献才能生存。

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捐赠

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林肯在纽约库珀联盟学院的演讲表明这位草原律师可以在大联盟中发挥作用

Badly disguised as Indians, a rowdy group of patriotic vandals kicked a revolution into motion.

一群吵闹的爱国破坏者伪装成印第安人，掀起了一场革命。

A diminutive, persuasive Virginian hijacked the Constitutional Convention and forced the moderates to accept a national government with vastly expanded powers.

一位身材矮小、有说服力的弗吉尼亚人劫持了制宪会议，迫使温和派接受一个权力大幅扩大的国家政府。

A bold dream to connect the Hudson to the Great Lakes by canal created a transportation revolution.

通过运河将哈德逊河与五大湖连接起来的大胆梦想引发了一场交通革命。

The telegraph was an even more dramatic innovation in its day than the Internet

电报在当时是比互联网更引人注目的创新

Banker J.

银行家 J.

P。

Morgan rescued the dollar and bailed out the nation.

摩根拯救了美元并救助了国家。

While lauded for their 1903 flight, the Wright brothers were not convinced of their airplane’s reliability to sustain long, controlled flights until October 1905.

尽管莱特兄弟因 1903 年的飞行而受到赞誉，但直到 1905 年 10 月，他们才相信他们的飞机能够维持长时间、受控飞行的可靠性。

In 1917, fed up with the inaction of conservative suffragists, Alice Paul decided on the unorthodox strategy of pressuring the president directly.

1917 年，由于厌倦了保守派妇女参政论者的无所作为，爱丽丝·保罗决定采取非正统的策略，直接向总统施压。

More than a million children participated in the Salk poliomyelitis vaccine trials of 1954, the largest public-health experiment in American history.

超过 100 万儿童参加了 1954 年的索尔克脊髓灰质炎疫苗试验，这是美国历史上最大的公共卫生试验。

A magazine reporter covered the first American deaths in Vietnam, unaware that the soon-to-explode war would mark America’s awakening to maturity.

一名杂志记者报道了第一批美国人在越南死亡的事件，却没有意识到这场即将爆发的战争将标志着美国的成熟觉醒。

For 75 years, American Heritage has been the leading magazine of U.S. history, politics, and culture.

75 年来，《美国遗产》一直是美国历史、政治和文化的领先杂志。