n 1825, the British inventor William Sturgeon (1783-1850) exhibited a device that laid    the foundations for large-scale electronic communications: the electromagnet. Sturgeon displayed its power by lifting nine pounds with a seven-ounce piece of iron wrapped with wires through which the current of a single cell battery was sent.

In 1830, an American, Joseph Henry (1797-1878), demonstrated the potential of Sturgeon's device for long distance communication by sending an electronic current over one mile of wire to activate an electromagnet which caused a bell to strike. Thus, the electric telegraph was born. Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872), whose sketches of a "magnetized magnet" in operation are shown here, successfully exploited Henry's invention commercially. While a professor of arts and design at New York University in 1835, Samuel Morse proved that signals could be transmitted by wire. He used pulses of current to deflect an electromagnet, which moved a marker to produce written codes on a strip of paper - the invention of the Morse code. The following year, the device was modified to emboss the paper with dots and dashes. He gave a public demonstration in 1838, but it was not until five years later that Congress funded $30,000 to construct an experimental telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore, a distance of 40 miles.

Six years later, members of Congress witnessed the sending and receiving of messages over part of the telegraph line. The first message transmitted was, "What hath God wrought?" sent later by the "Morse Code" from the old Supreme Court chamber in the United States capital to his partner in Baltimore, officially opened the completed line on May 24, 1844.  Samuel Morse and his associates obtained private funds to extend their line to Philadelphia and New York. Small telegraph companies meanwhile began functioning in the East, South, and Midwest. Dispatching trains by telegraph started in 1851, the same year Western Union began their business. Western Union built its first transcontinental telegraph line in 1861, mainly along railroad rights-of-way. In 1881, the Postal Telegraph System entered the field for economic reasons and merged with Western Union in 1943. The original Morse telegraph printed code on tape. However, in the United States the operation developed into sending by key and receiving by ear. A trained Morse operator could transmit 40 to 50 words per minute. Automatic transmission, introduced in 1914, handled more than twice that number.

A British Raj left behind. Interestingly, these equipments are in vogue even today in some segments. The Railway line and the Telegraph Equipment were key elements that helped the British network this epic country.