1944 3c Centenary of the Telegraph

U.S. #924
3¢ Telegraph Centenary
Issue Date: May 24, 1944
City: Washington, D.C.; Baltimore, MD
Quantity: 60,605,000
Printed by: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Rotary Press
Perforations: 11 x 10.5
Color: Bright red violet

In 1843 Congress gave Samuel Morse $30,000 to test his telegraph with a line between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. Morse first planned to bury the wire. Ezra Cornell’s cable-laying plow started work in Baltimore in October 1843, but after about 9.5 miles the buried line was failing and the work stopped. Morse switched to wires strung on poles, and about 700 chestnut poles were used. When the line was still unfinished, news of the Whig Party’s nomination of Henry Clay was sent from the party’s convention in Baltimore to the Capitol.

On May 24, 1844, Morse sat in the Old Supreme Court Chamber of the Capitol and sent the first official message over the line to Alfred Vail, who was waiting at the Mount Clare station in Baltimore. The words were “What hath God wrought,” a phrase suggested by Annie Ellsworth, whose husband backed Morse. The line opened to the public on April 1, 1845, and over the following years telegraph wires spread across the country. News that once took days or weeks to travel could now arrive in minutes.

The Post Office Department issued this stamp to mark the telegraph’s 100th anniversary. By 1944 the telegraph had been part of American life for a century, carrying news, business orders, and family messages. It was also a wartime stamp, issued while telegrams carried word between families and soldiers overseas.