Samuel Finley Breese Morse

Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1791, he studied at Yale and first built his reputation as an artist, especially as a portrait painter. He also became an important figure in early American art education, serving as one of the first professors of painting and sculpture at New York University.

In the 1830s, after turning seriously to electrical communication, he helped develop a practical single-wire telegraph system. Working with collaborators including Alfred Vail, he became closely associated with the signaling system that came to be known as Morse code, and in 1844 the famous message "What hath God wrought" was sent over the first telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore.

He remained a prominent public figure for the rest of his life, remembered both for his paintings and for helping transform long-distance communication. He died in New York City in 1872, leaving a legacy that reaches far beyond the code that still bears his name.