June 8, 2025 • 16 mins
The Story of the telegraph
Original Air Date: February 06, 1951
Host: Andrew Rhynes
Show: Western Stories
Phone: (707) 98 OTRDW (6-8739)
Narrator:
• Paul Shannon
Exit music from: Roundup on the Prairie by Aaron Kenny https://bit.ly/3kTj0kK
Original Air Date: February 06, 1951
Host: Andrew Rhynes
Show: Western Stories
Phone: (707) 98 OTRDW (6-8739)
Narrator:
• Paul Shannon
Exit music from: Roundup on the Prairie by Aaron Kenny https://bit.ly/3kTj0kK
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to the Old time Radio Westerns. I'm your host,
Angel Ryans, and I'm excited to bring you another episode
absolutely free. This is one of over eighty episodes released
monthly for your enjoyment. Now let's get into this episode.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Adventures in Research. One of America's first recognized artists, one
of its skilled mechanics, and one of its greatest professors
all lent their talents to one of the world's most
far reaching inventions, the Sound Heard round the World. This
(01:06):
is Paul Shannon bringing you another transcribed story of science,
produced as a public service in cooperation with the Westinghouse
Research Laboratory, and today telling you the story behind the
invention of the telegraph, of the drama, the men, and
the heartbreak involved in the Sound Heard around the World.
(01:29):
The class room of the Albany Academy in eighteen thirty
one was filled with the murmur of students voices. The
instructor had not yet appeared, and the young men were
in heated discussion. I tell you you're all wrong. It'd
been working with it in England for years. Then ask
Professor Henry about it.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
When he comes. He'll tell you, comes, Doctor Tennant. Class
must be ready to start. I guess so you wonder
what Professor Henry had after see to do? Doctor? How
are you the Professor Cumming? Yes, Jason should be here
any minute. It was up half the night working on
an experiment. He wants to show the glass about electricity.
I wait you, I won't divulge the Professor's seat. Something
(02:05):
to do with the wire strung around it is over
a mile of it. We were stringing at half the night.
But no more will I say now? What to tell you?
Just like what Parady is doing. You mean he wrapped
silk around the wire to protect the wire from itself.
Good morning, gentlemen. Now if you'll all take your seats
please now, gentlemen, now for the show him to do.
(02:29):
I have no mind. Here's the new head. Now you
must forgive my little show. Gentlemen, it would seem I
have not quite gotten over being president of the Albany
Dramatic Club. Now hand me that bag there if you
will cut her. Thank you. Now Here we have a
little bell mounted on a stand. I'll put it over
(02:49):
here on the window. That's where the wire starts. Tomad
it He's strung over a mile of that wire around
the room. Now here is the pivot also set on
a stand and perfectly balanced on the pivot, is this
bar of steel ten inches long? Very well? Now now
here we have a horseshoe magnet with hundreds of turns
of fine wire wound around each branch. So I'll connect
(03:12):
these to the wire you see strung around the room.
Now we'll carefully set the magnet so that the end
of the bar comes between its two poles. He appears
a batteries he has at the back of the room. Now,
I've already slipped the wire running around the room and
have attached one end of it to the battery of
twenty four cells, which you see back there. Jason, if
(03:33):
you'll please connect the wire at this end when I
tell you now, gentlemen, before we do this, you probably
want to know just what I'm up to. Now. You
remember my lectures on quantity and intensity magnet. You've seen
our quantity magnets lift more than seven hundred pounds. You
remember that these magnets are made of many sharp pieces
(03:54):
of wire wound over one another around the soft iron core.
These we connected in parallel to a single cell made
of a pair of copper and zinc plates. And acids,
and you were surprised by the tremendous weights this quantity
magnet attached to this quantity battery could lift.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
But Professor Henry we tried putting the maggots in a
long circuit, and the power left them. Yes, electricity couldn't
travel very far.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Exactly, the electricity could not travel far. At least that's
what has put an end to all attempts thus far
to invent a telegraph. A man named Peter Barlow wrote
a few years ago an article in which he proved
the telegraph was impossible. It's difficult to prove anything is impossible.
(04:42):
After you've proved an impossibility, someone always seems to come
along and do the impossible thing. Now, you gentlemen, were
not here when I first lectured on the possibility of
mister Barlow's impossibility. So I will repeat. If you wind
a long single wire around the island rather than a
(05:02):
short wire, if you make hundreds of turns with that
one long insulated wire, you will have what I call
an intensity magnet. If you then make a battery of
many pairs of zinc and copper plates instead of one pair,
you then have an intensity battery. Now by connecting them.
The power will be the same over a long distance
(05:24):
as over a foot or two. It won't lift as
heavy a weight as the other, but it will lift
the same weight a mile away as a foot away.
Now there is more than a mile of wire hung
around this room. Here in the window is our intensity magnet,
and a steel bar and a bell. The magnet is
(05:44):
in the circuit with that intensity battery over where mister
Jason is standing. Jason, will you now touch the other
wire to the battery. It's magic, Look for no cornor
It's not magic. It's electromagnetism. But it is a telegraph, sir,
(06:05):
you have invented it. It would be an easy affair
to arrange a court of signals, but that is not
my affair. I am not an inventor. I am a
teacher of natural philosophy. Someone undouted they will invent a telegraph.
When he does, and you, gentlemen, see it. You will
recall that you heard a signal from an electro magnet
in Albany Academy in eighteen thirty one.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Six years later, in New York City, Professor Leonard Gailee
was conducting an investigation of batteries. The University of the
City of New York had encouraged him and learning of
Henry's astonishing experiments, Gail was working hard when he had
a visitor, the university's professor of Fine arts, Samuel Moore.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Oh morse startled me. Come in close the door. That's
the matter, Samuel, you look sad and cool. Hunger means nothing.
There are more important things. You're be the only man
who can help me. I need advice. I know nothing
about painting, Samuel, painting, bosh. This this is my secret.
(07:14):
I have invented a telegraph.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Moore showed his invention to Gail. It was the works
of an old clock, a long free pendulum ending in
a pencil, a roll of paper, and horseshoe magnet. The
pendulum moved, the clockwork moved, the roll of paper moved.
The pencil traced a wavy lion on the paper.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
What do you think the most promising concept? This roll
of paper? That's a new idea, isn't it? It's all
you all mine, Samuel. You mean you don't know Franklin
laplaus ampere shilling bollow, Henry, I have all tried similar experiments.
Mean you haven't read you don't know. True, I didn't
(08:06):
mean to aventure, Samuel. The work of these men detracts nothing.
No one can possess a dream alone. No inventor ever
invented the whole of anything. You have the mind of
an artist, Samuel. For the unscientific, the scientific mind studies
every experiment on record. You're using an old magnet, no insulation.
(08:32):
But you have something here. Study, read and finish it,
and get a mechanic, a man who can make a
workmanlike finished machine. And study.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Morse found and assistant a man named Alfred Veo, who
is very enthusiastic about the telegraph. With his help, the
telegraph began to take shape. But there were problems, and
so after much work and improvement, Morse and Professor Leonard
Gale one day sought the advice of Professor Henry.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
We seem to have troubled you a great deal of Professor,
what I'm here for? We share such knowledge as I
might have, And Morse, I congratulate you. I understand. Congress
has given you an appropriation. We have not won yet,
mister Henry. Congress gave us thirty thousand dollars. We've spent
all but seven thousand on our underground wires. Now they
(09:29):
have lost their power in the mud the insulation heading. Yeah, yes,
I have heard of that. Have Perhaps if you strung
the wire overhead.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
He thought of overhead wires, but Alfred Veo, my assistant,
thought they would be too dangerous.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
The wires might come together in the win wires, mister Morris,
one wire sink the ends deep in the earth. The
circuit would be made by the ground. The earth is
the fluid will flow through the ground. You discovered this, No, no,
it was made in Germany by Steinheil, which isn't patented.
You're at liberty. You use it. An inventor must borrow
(10:06):
such things whoever discovers them. That's the answer, Morse. No
more digging. If it worked, it cannot help working. If
it does work, Professor, we will be very indebted to you.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Forgive me, Professor. You must know of my deep respects,
my veneration for you. I've realized the great importance of
your discoveries to the telegraphic.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Come, come, Moss, we must get back to work. Let
us see if Henry's idea works.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Bail and Morse had made many changes in their telegraph
A pen had replaced the pencil that wrote, and the
first code was a number that stood for an entire word.
Soon they changed it to mere dots and dashes, which
stood for letters and were written on the paper. Then
they replaced the pen with a stylist that invented the paper.
(10:57):
Bail became so apt at reading them that he could
read the message merely by hearing the clicks. Then Vale
had a further idea, how.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Would it be to make a machine without any paper rolls,
but with the hollow metal for the stylus to hit,
so the click would be louder a sounder instead of
a recorder.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Finally, too, Veil persuaded Morse to do away with the
cumbersome sender with its circuit breaking line of type. Now
beside the recorder on the table was a neat key
of steel spring. You pressed it to make the contact
and then released it. And finally the faithful day arrived.
Samuel Morse at the Supreme Court at Washington would use
(11:42):
Vale's key. As Vale stood waiting for the message, he
probably recalled other changes he had instituted.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
The type was.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Gone, with the roller to move it. The wavy line
was now a succession of dots and dashes. The horseshoe
magnet was gone and there was a neat spool instead.
And as he awaited the important message, several distinguished citizens
entered the Montclair Railroad station at Baltimore.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
If that message comes through from Washington, we want to
see it.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Want my boy to see here? Is that it? That
little thing on the table won't explore it, nothing, will it? Why? Please?
That's the signal The message will now come from Washington.
W h A T What happened? Breakdown? Didn't think it
(12:31):
would work? All h A T.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
H what half g?
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Pretty good? Oh? D w R oh you g h G?
What hath God?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Under Franklin Sturgeon, Henry Steinheil, Alfred Vale and Samuel Moore.
It was many men that made the telegraph possible, from
the first man that found the strange phenomenon electricity to
(13:24):
the professor of fine arts Samuel Moore. With their combined
knowledge and effort and success and heartbreak, came the telegraph,
a sound heard around the world. And that's today's adventure
(13:51):
and research produced in cooperation with the Westinghouse Research Laboratory.
These programs are broadcast to armed forces personnel overseas through
the facilities of the Armed Forces Radio Service. Join us
again next week for another transcribed story of science on
(14:16):
adventures in research.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
This has been a presentation of OTR Westerns dot Com
and we hope you enjoyed. Please take some time to
like and rate this episode within your favorite podcast application.
Follow us on Facebook by going to OTR Westerns dot
com slash Facebook, and subscribe to our YouTube channel by
going to OTR Westerns dot com slash YouTube. Become one
(15:07):
of our ranch hands and unlocksome exclusive content. We want
to thank our most recent ranch hands, Steve and Technogod,
who joined us recently. YouTube can join by going to
OTR Westerns dot com slash Donate. Send us an email
podcast at OTR Westerns dot com and you can call
and leave us a voicemail seven oh seven nine eight
(15:28):
six eight seven thirty nine. This episode is copyrighted under
the attribution non Commercial share Like copyright. For more information,
go to OTR Westerns dot com slash copyright. Have a
great day and thanks for listening. Then happen
Welcome to the Old time Radio Westerns. I'm your host,
Angel Ryans, and I'm excited to bring you another episode
absolutely free. This is one of over eighty episodes released
monthly for your enjoyment. Now let's get into this episode.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Adventures in Research. One of America's first recognized artists, one
of its skilled mechanics, and one of its greatest professors
all lent their talents to one of the world's most
far reaching inventions, the Sound Heard round the World. This
(01:06):
is Paul Shannon bringing you another transcribed story of science,
produced as a public service in cooperation with the Westinghouse
Research Laboratory, and today telling you the story behind the
invention of the telegraph, of the drama, the men, and
the heartbreak involved in the Sound Heard around the World.
(01:29):
The class room of the Albany Academy in eighteen thirty
one was filled with the murmur of students voices. The
instructor had not yet appeared, and the young men were
in heated discussion. I tell you you're all wrong. It'd
been working with it in England for years. Then ask
Professor Henry about it.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
When he comes. He'll tell you, comes, Doctor Tennant. Class
must be ready to start. I guess so you wonder
what Professor Henry had after see to do? Doctor? How
are you the Professor Cumming? Yes, Jason should be here
any minute. It was up half the night working on
an experiment. He wants to show the glass about electricity.
I wait you, I won't divulge the Professor's seat. Something
(02:05):
to do with the wire strung around it is over
a mile of it. We were stringing at half the night.
But no more will I say now? What to tell you?
Just like what Parady is doing. You mean he wrapped
silk around the wire to protect the wire from itself.
Good morning, gentlemen. Now if you'll all take your seats
please now, gentlemen, now for the show him to do.
(02:29):
I have no mind. Here's the new head. Now you
must forgive my little show. Gentlemen, it would seem I
have not quite gotten over being president of the Albany
Dramatic Club. Now hand me that bag there if you
will cut her. Thank you. Now Here we have a
little bell mounted on a stand. I'll put it over
(02:49):
here on the window. That's where the wire starts. Tomad
it He's strung over a mile of that wire around
the room. Now here is the pivot also set on
a stand and perfectly balanced on the pivot, is this
bar of steel ten inches long? Very well? Now now
here we have a horseshoe magnet with hundreds of turns
of fine wire wound around each branch. So I'll connect
(03:12):
these to the wire you see strung around the room.
Now we'll carefully set the magnet so that the end
of the bar comes between its two poles. He appears
a batteries he has at the back of the room. Now,
I've already slipped the wire running around the room and
have attached one end of it to the battery of
twenty four cells, which you see back there. Jason, if
(03:33):
you'll please connect the wire at this end when I
tell you now, gentlemen, before we do this, you probably
want to know just what I'm up to. Now. You
remember my lectures on quantity and intensity magnet. You've seen
our quantity magnets lift more than seven hundred pounds. You
remember that these magnets are made of many sharp pieces
(03:54):
of wire wound over one another around the soft iron core.
These we connected in parallel to a single cell made
of a pair of copper and zinc plates. And acids,
and you were surprised by the tremendous weights this quantity
magnet attached to this quantity battery could lift.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
But Professor Henry we tried putting the maggots in a
long circuit, and the power left them. Yes, electricity couldn't
travel very far.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Exactly, the electricity could not travel far. At least that's
what has put an end to all attempts thus far
to invent a telegraph. A man named Peter Barlow wrote
a few years ago an article in which he proved
the telegraph was impossible. It's difficult to prove anything is impossible.
(04:42):
After you've proved an impossibility, someone always seems to come
along and do the impossible thing. Now, you gentlemen, were
not here when I first lectured on the possibility of
mister Barlow's impossibility. So I will repeat. If you wind
a long single wire around the island rather than a
(05:02):
short wire, if you make hundreds of turns with that
one long insulated wire, you will have what I call
an intensity magnet. If you then make a battery of
many pairs of zinc and copper plates instead of one pair,
you then have an intensity battery. Now by connecting them.
The power will be the same over a long distance
(05:24):
as over a foot or two. It won't lift as
heavy a weight as the other, but it will lift
the same weight a mile away as a foot away.
Now there is more than a mile of wire hung
around this room. Here in the window is our intensity magnet,
and a steel bar and a bell. The magnet is
(05:44):
in the circuit with that intensity battery over where mister
Jason is standing. Jason, will you now touch the other
wire to the battery. It's magic, Look for no cornor
It's not magic. It's electromagnetism. But it is a telegraph, sir,
(06:05):
you have invented it. It would be an easy affair
to arrange a court of signals, but that is not
my affair. I am not an inventor. I am a
teacher of natural philosophy. Someone undouted they will invent a telegraph.
When he does, and you, gentlemen, see it. You will
recall that you heard a signal from an electro magnet
in Albany Academy in eighteen thirty one.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Six years later, in New York City, Professor Leonard Gailee
was conducting an investigation of batteries. The University of the
City of New York had encouraged him and learning of
Henry's astonishing experiments, Gail was working hard when he had
a visitor, the university's professor of Fine arts, Samuel Moore.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Oh morse startled me. Come in close the door. That's
the matter, Samuel, you look sad and cool. Hunger means nothing.
There are more important things. You're be the only man
who can help me. I need advice. I know nothing
about painting, Samuel, painting, bosh. This this is my secret.
(07:14):
I have invented a telegraph.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Moore showed his invention to Gail. It was the works
of an old clock, a long free pendulum ending in
a pencil, a roll of paper, and horseshoe magnet. The
pendulum moved, the clockwork moved, the roll of paper moved.
The pencil traced a wavy lion on the paper.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
What do you think the most promising concept? This roll
of paper? That's a new idea, isn't it? It's all
you all mine, Samuel. You mean you don't know Franklin
laplaus ampere shilling bollow, Henry, I have all tried similar experiments.
Mean you haven't read you don't know. True, I didn't
(08:06):
mean to aventure, Samuel. The work of these men detracts nothing.
No one can possess a dream alone. No inventor ever
invented the whole of anything. You have the mind of
an artist, Samuel. For the unscientific, the scientific mind studies
every experiment on record. You're using an old magnet, no insulation.
(08:32):
But you have something here. Study, read and finish it,
and get a mechanic, a man who can make a
workmanlike finished machine. And study.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Morse found and assistant a man named Alfred Veo, who
is very enthusiastic about the telegraph. With his help, the
telegraph began to take shape. But there were problems, and
so after much work and improvement, Morse and Professor Leonard
Gale one day sought the advice of Professor Henry.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
We seem to have troubled you a great deal of Professor,
what I'm here for? We share such knowledge as I
might have, And Morse, I congratulate you. I understand. Congress
has given you an appropriation. We have not won yet,
mister Henry. Congress gave us thirty thousand dollars. We've spent
all but seven thousand on our underground wires. Now they
(09:29):
have lost their power in the mud the insulation heading. Yeah, yes,
I have heard of that. Have Perhaps if you strung
the wire overhead.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
He thought of overhead wires, but Alfred Veo, my assistant,
thought they would be too dangerous.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
The wires might come together in the win wires, mister Morris,
one wire sink the ends deep in the earth. The
circuit would be made by the ground. The earth is
the fluid will flow through the ground. You discovered this, No, no,
it was made in Germany by Steinheil, which isn't patented.
You're at liberty. You use it. An inventor must borrow
(10:06):
such things whoever discovers them. That's the answer, Morse. No
more digging. If it worked, it cannot help working. If
it does work, Professor, we will be very indebted to you.
Speaker 5 (10:17):
Forgive me, Professor. You must know of my deep respects,
my veneration for you. I've realized the great importance of
your discoveries to the telegraphic.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Come, come, Moss, we must get back to work. Let
us see if Henry's idea works.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Bail and Morse had made many changes in their telegraph
A pen had replaced the pencil that wrote, and the
first code was a number that stood for an entire word.
Soon they changed it to mere dots and dashes, which
stood for letters and were written on the paper. Then
they replaced the pen with a stylist that invented the paper.
(10:57):
Bail became so apt at reading them that he could
read the message merely by hearing the clicks. Then Vale
had a further idea, how.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Would it be to make a machine without any paper rolls,
but with the hollow metal for the stylus to hit,
so the click would be louder a sounder instead of
a recorder.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Finally, too, Veil persuaded Morse to do away with the
cumbersome sender with its circuit breaking line of type. Now
beside the recorder on the table was a neat key
of steel spring. You pressed it to make the contact
and then released it. And finally the faithful day arrived.
Samuel Morse at the Supreme Court at Washington would use
(11:42):
Vale's key. As Vale stood waiting for the message, he
probably recalled other changes he had instituted.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
The type was.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Gone, with the roller to move it. The wavy line
was now a succession of dots and dashes. The horseshoe
magnet was gone and there was a neat spool instead.
And as he awaited the important message, several distinguished citizens
entered the Montclair Railroad station at Baltimore.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
If that message comes through from Washington, we want to
see it.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Want my boy to see here? Is that it? That
little thing on the table won't explore it, nothing, will it? Why? Please?
That's the signal The message will now come from Washington.
W h A T What happened? Breakdown? Didn't think it
(12:31):
would work? All h A T.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
H what half g?
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Pretty good? Oh? D w R oh you g h G?
What hath God?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Under Franklin Sturgeon, Henry Steinheil, Alfred Vale and Samuel Moore.
It was many men that made the telegraph possible, from
the first man that found the strange phenomenon electricity to
(13:24):
the professor of fine arts Samuel Moore. With their combined
knowledge and effort and success and heartbreak, came the telegraph,
a sound heard around the world. And that's today's adventure
(13:51):
and research produced in cooperation with the Westinghouse Research Laboratory.
These programs are broadcast to armed forces personnel overseas through
the facilities of the Armed Forces Radio Service. Join us
again next week for another transcribed story of science on
(14:16):
adventures in research.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
This has been a presentation of OTR Westerns dot Com
and we hope you enjoyed. Please take some time to
like and rate this episode within your favorite podcast application.
Follow us on Facebook by going to OTR Westerns dot
com slash Facebook, and subscribe to our YouTube channel by
going to OTR Westerns dot com slash YouTube. Become one
(15:07):
of our ranch hands and unlocksome exclusive content. We want
to thank our most recent ranch hands, Steve and Technogod,
who joined us recently. YouTube can join by going to
OTR Westerns dot com slash Donate. Send us an email
podcast at OTR Westerns dot com and you can call
and leave us a voicemail seven oh seven nine eight
(15:28):
six eight seven thirty nine. This episode is copyrighted under
the attribution non Commercial share Like copyright. For more information,
go to OTR Westerns dot com slash copyright. Have a
great day and thanks for listening. Then happen
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