Alfred Lewis Vail ( born Alfred Lewis Vail ; September 25, 1807 , Morristown , NJ , January 18, 1859 ) is an American inventor and businessman.
| Alfred Lewis Vale | |
|---|---|
| Alfred Lewis Vail | |
 | |
| Date of Birth | |
| Place of Birth | Morristown , New Jersey |
| Date of death | |
| Citizenship |  USA |
| Occupation | businessman and inventor |
Together with Samuel Morse, Weil was one of the developers of the electromagnetic telegraph and the creator of commercial telegraph lines in the United States in 1837-1844 [3] . Weil and Morse were the operators of the first experimental Morse telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore . Weil also supervised the construction and management of a number of telegraph lines in 1845-1848. Weil made a number of improvements to the Morse telegraph system, in particular to recording registers and relay magnets. Vale left the telegraph business in 1848, believing that Morse managers did not appraise his work properly. As the Superintendent of the Washington and New Orleans Telegraph Company with a salary of $ 900 a year, Weil wrote to Morse: “I decided to leave the telegraph to take care of myself, because he cannot take care of me. In the coming months I will move from Washington to New Jersey ... and leave the telegraph for a more profitable business ” [4] .
Content
- 1 Biography
- 2 Morse Code
- 3 Memory
- 4 See also
- 5 notes
- 6 References
Biography
Alfred Vale was born in , New Jersey ; his parents were Betty Youngs (1778–1847) and Stephen Vale (1780–1864). Alfred’s father, Stephen Vale, was an entrepreneur and industrialist, among his projects was the construction of the ironworks, one of the most innovative metallurgical plants of the time [5] . Subsequently, it was at this plant that Alfred Vale and Samuel Morse demonstrated their first electric telegraph [6] . There were four children in the family: Harriet (1802–1828), Alfred (1807–1859), (1809–1875) - subsequently a well-known democrat politician , and Sarah Louise Davis (1811–1887).
Alfred studied at a public school, after which he worked as a locksmith in metallurgical plants. In 1832 he entered and in 1836 graduated from New York University [3] , where he studied theology and was an active member of the literary student society Eucleian Society . When visiting his alma mater on September 2, 1837, Weil witnessed one of Samuel Morse ’s early telegraph experiments. Alfred became interested in technical innovation and suggested Morse at his own expense to finalize the technology at his father’s Speedwell Ironworks factory in exchange for 25% of future revenue from the commercial operation of the telegraph. Alfred shared his share with his brother George. Subsequently, Morse took in the companions of Francis Smith, a congressman from the state of Maine , reducing the share of Weil to one-eighth, while Morse owned the patents for all the development.
Having received the support of his father, Alfred Vale improved the Morse telegraph prototype to make it suitable for public demonstration and subsequent commercial exploitation. The first successful 2-mile (3-km) telegraph communication session took place at the Speedwell Ironworks factory on January 6, 1838. The telegraph sent the text "A patient waiter is not a loser." Over the next months, Morse and Vale showed a telegraph at in Philadelphia , members of Congress , as well as US President Martin Van Buren in his office. Thanks to an active demonstration of Morse’s invention, in 1843 he received from the US Congress a subsidy of $ 30,000 for the construction of the first telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore.
Since Alfred Vale and his brother George received only an eighth of the profits from the Morse telegraph business, Alfred, being deeply disappointed, left this business in 1848 and returned to Morristown. The last ten years of his life, Alfred Weil was engaged in genealogical research.
The documents and equipment of A. Weil were subsequently donated by his son Stephen to the Smithsonian Institution and the .
Alfred Vale's cousin was , who became the first president of American Telephone & Telegraph .
Morse Code
Alfred Weil and Samuel Morse jointly developed the Morse code , but the question of the contribution of each of them to the development continues to be the subject of fierce debate. A number of researchers argue in favor of the fact that the main role in the development belongs to Weil [7] [8] [9] [10] .
Proponents of the point of view that Morse belongs to the invention, argue that Morse originally developed a code similar to that used in the then optical telegraph , where words were denoted by three- or four-digit numbers recorded in the code book. The sending operator compiled messages from these numerical groups, and the receiving operator translated them again into words using this codebook. For several months, Morse code processed this dictionary of codes. Morse supporters argue that Weil in public and private correspondence never claimed to be a code developer. According to one researcher, in February 1838, Alfred Weil wrote in a letter to his father: “Professor Morse invented a new plan of the alphabet, and dictionaries were thrown aside” [11] . In 1845, Weil, describing the Morse telegraph, also attributed the development of the code to Morse himself [12] .
Memory
Alfred Vale is named after the U.S. Army Base in Eatontown, New Jersey and an elementary school near Speedwell Works, in Morristown, New Jersey.
See also
- Morse code
- Telegraph
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 SNAC - 2010.
- ↑ 1 2 Find a Grave - 1995. - ed. size: 165000000
- ↑ 1 2 [1] Archived March 21, 2005 on the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Morse, Edward L., ed. Samuel FB Morse, His Letters and Journals. New York, 1914
- ↑ Alfred Vail , World of Invention. Accessed June 1, 2008. "Alfred Vail was born on September 25, 1807, in Morristown, New Jersey, where his father, Stephen, operated the Speedwell Iron Works."
- ↑ James W. Sheire (January 20, 1974). National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: The Factory - The Speedwell Village / The Factory
- ↑ Pope, Franklin Leonard. “The American Inventors of the Telegraph, with Special References to the Services of Alfred Vail.” Century Illustrated Magazine 35 (April 1888), 924-45. on-line copy at Cornell's Making of America
- ↑ Morse Code or Vail Code?
- ↑ Morse, Edward Lind . Defends His Father's Claim to Paternity of the Telegraph. (PDF), New York Times (June 21, 1904). Date of access July 21, 2007. "My attention has been called to a communication in The New York Times of June 7 headed" Vail, Father of the Telegraph, "and signed Stephen Vail. While I have no desire to enter into a newspaper controversy with Mr. Vail, and while I am sure that you have no desire to encourage one, I trust in justice to my father, Samuel FB Morse, you will allow me a few words in reply. ”
- ↑ Vail, Stephen . VAIL-MORSE CONTROVERSY .; Stephen Vail on His Father's Claim to Telegraph Invention. (PDF), New York Times (June 25, 1904). Released December 22, 2009. "Alfred Vail ... invented the new" recording receiver, "" the sounding key, "and the" dot-and-dash "alphabet ... but doing his duty in strict accordance with his understanding of the terms of his contract, and that to Morse belonged all that he had accomplished. ”
- ↑ Silverman, Kenneth. Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel FB Morse. New York, 2003, p. 167
- ↑ Alfred Vail, The American Electro Magnetic Telegraph: With the Reports of Congress, and a Description of all Telegraphs Known, Employing Electricity or Galvanism, Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1845. Reprinted by New York: Arno Press, 1974
Links
- Morse Telegraph Club, Inc. (The Morse Telegraph Club is an international non-profit organization dedicated to the perpetuation of the knowledge and traditions of telegraphy.)
- Alfred Vail Biography at speedwell.org
- The Electromagnetic Telegraph by JB Calvert
- Profile of Alfred Vail (Manuscript Group 50, Alfred Vail Papers, The New Jersey Historical Society)
- Vail Telegraph Collection from the Smithsonian Institution Archives
- "A Forgotten History: Alfred Vail and Samuel Morse" also from the Smithsonian Institution Archives
- Iles, George (1912), Leading American Inventors , New York: Henry Holt and Company, p. 158–176 , < https://archive.org/details/leadingamericani00ilesrich >