Samuel F. B. Morse, Class of 1810, '46LLDHon (1791-1872). The inspiration for Yale’s Morse College, Morse invented and successfully tested both the first practical telegraph and an alphabet for transmitting messages in the late 1830s. He put the telegraph into long-distance working operation on May 24, 1844, when he sent the message “What hath God wrought” in Morse code over an experimental line from Washington to Baltimore.

Morse, also a noted artist, was the first president of the National Academy of Design (1826-1845), and—thanks to a daguerreotype camera he purchased from its inventor in France—one of the first photographers in America. He was commemorated in 1940 on a two-cent stamp.