On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse successfully demonstrated the electric telegraph by sending the historic message 'What hath God wrought' from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore. This groundbreaking invention revolutionized communication, enabling messages to be transmitted over long distances almost instantaneously, which was a dramatic shift from previous methods of communication. The telegraph laid the groundwork for modern telecommunications and had profound implications for journalism, business, and personal communication in the rapidly industrializing world.

The telegraph shattered the ancient link between message speed and physical travel; Thoreau wrote that 'we are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas' but asked whether the states had anything to say to each other — a foundational literary question about speed vs. meaning.