Product Description

In this brilliantly conceived and written biography, Pulitzer Prize–winning Kenneth Silverman gives us the long and amazing life of the man eulogized by the New York Herald in 1872 as “perhaps the most illustrious American of his age.”

Silverman presents Samuel Morse in all his complexity. There is the gifted and prolific painter (more than three hundred portraits and larger historical canvases) and pioneer photographer, who gave the first lectures on art in America, became the first Professor of Fine Arts at an American college (New York University), and founded the National Academy of Design. There is the republican idealist, prominent in antebellum politics, who ran for Congress and for mayor of New York. But most important, there is the inventor of the American electromagnetic telegraph, which earned Morse the name Lightning Man and brought him the fame he sought.

In these pages, we witness the evolution of the great invention from its inception as an idea to its introduction to the world—an event that astonished Morse’s contemporaries and was considered the supreme expression of the country’s inventive genius. We see how it transformed commerce, journalism, transportation, military affairs, diplomacy, and the very shape of daily life, ushering in the modern era of communication.

But we discover as well that Morse viewed his existence as accursed rather than illustrious, his every achievement seeming to end in loss and defeat: his most ambitious canvases went unsold; his beloved republic imploded into civil war, making it unlivable for him; and the commercial success of the telegraph engulfed him in lawsuits challenging the originality and ownership of his invention.

Lightning Man is the first biography of Samuel F. B. Morse in sixty years. It is a revelation of the life of a fascinating and profoundly troubled American genius.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #708925 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-21
• Released on: 2003-10-21
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 512 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The New York Herald may have eulogized the inventor of the telegraph in 1872 as "perhaps the most illustrious American of his age," but Samuel Morse may have concluded otherwise: he thought his life a failure. Hence the subtitle of this painstakingly researched, gracefully and soberly told life. Silverman, who won the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes for his 1984 biography of Cotton Mather, presents us with a fool's progress of sorts. Morse seems to have fallen into inventing by way of a mediocre painting career. He was a disappointment to his pious Protestant parents, who envisioned a respectable career for their son but got a dreamer instead. By the age of 41, Morse was still dreaming of a commission from Congress to be hung in the Capitol dome and still undecided as to his calling in life. He dabbled in inventing, considered a career as a minister, became an art teacher at New York University, ran unsuccessful candidacies for mayor and for Congress on anti-immigration platforms and wrote screeds against Catholic conspiracies to undermine the American republic. He dabbled in a new technology, photography, and of course, promoted his electromagnetic telegraph, battling domestic and foreign competitors and, after finally achieving commercial success, a tide of lawsuits. Silverman's vivid portrait is of a naive, restless man who stays a dreamer all his life and dies disappointed. The author writes in a narrative style as staid and temperate as the Protestant bourgeoisie he writes about. This should appeal as both history of science and stolid biography. 49 photos and illus.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Silverman has proved himself a masterful biographer in his books on Cotton Mather and Edgar Allan Poe and continues the tradition with this biography of the putative inventor of the electric telegraph. Silverman homes in on Morse's sui generis claim that he produced the telegraph on his own in 1832. This assertion was disputed by a gallery of litigious sharpers thirsting for wealth from telegraphy. It is also a question that Silverman sensibly consigns to the category of the insoluble. Indeed Silverman's great talent lies in the way he refrains from expostulating directly, allowing Morse's habits and actions to speak through his own words. Even the author's use of the acidic adjective accursed in his subtitle leaves readers unsure about whether bad luck or odium is implied. Morse's letters to his children, whom he dumped on relatives, indicate he neglected them to pursue his lifelong dream to become a painter. On the other hand, Silverman portrays Morse as easily depressed, vexed by the business disputes to which his artistic, pious, and overly trusting nature was ill suited. Set in his times, the man in full arises in Silverman's exemplary biography. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“An exhilaratingly vivid, historically balanced biography of Samuel F. B. Morse . . . Silverman’s well-paced, character-driven storytelling brings Morse’s raw, emotional persona to life.”
–James A. Buczynski, Library Journal

“Superb . . . Its thorough research, measured scholarship, and wonderful prose serve to illuminate brilliantly the Lightning Man’s eight decades of struggle, inner turmoil and genius. It is not easy to depict–sympathetically yet realistically–so flawed and complex a character. And yet Mr. Silverman has.
–Edward J. Renehan, Jr., The Wall Street Journal

“Now told brilliantly by Silverman . . . a life of great scope, with heroic heights and tragic lows.”
–Henry Petroski, Los Angeles Times

“[A] vivid portrait . . . Painstakingly researched, gracefully and soberly told.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A superbly rendered life of the painter, sculptor, and photographer best known as the inventor of the electromagnetic telegraph . . . A first-rate, well-balanced blend of personal and cultural history.”
–Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Silverman has proved himself a masterful biographer . . . [His] great talent lies in the way he refrains from expostulating directly, allowing Morse’s habits and actions to speak through his own words. . . Set in his times, the man in full arises in Silverman’s exemplary biography.”
–Gilbert Taylor, Booklist (starred and boxed review)

Customer Reviews

Excellent bio of telegraph inventor
Basically I agree with the reviews of Deborah Taylor, Charles De Fanti, Jr. and Matthew Wall. I had no idea that Morse was an accomplished painter and introduced daguerreotype photography to the USA and taught Matthew Brady. Thanks to Hollywood, I had no idea that one of the best features of the Morse telegraph system was automatic recording of the dot and dash signals, so no operator had to be present when they arrived. Or that he was involved with the trans-Atlantic cables. Or that he finally threw himself on the mercy of European governments in which the Morse telegraph system was being used and asked for an indemnity, one-time, saying he would be satisfied with whatever it was ($2 million in today's money).

We were never exposed to Morse's pro-slavery bible-based views, or his campaign support for General George McClellan in 1864 against Lincoln. The idea that English abolitionists were planted or encouraged to go to the USA to weaken us was there.

Silverman has provided a good index and astounding documentation of sources. Those of you who have looked at my other reviews and seen lists of errors will be impressed that I did not find a single one in this wonderfully readable book. My only wish is that there were a few more details of the telegraph devices. And why no table of the Morse code? No matter: this is one of the best books I have ever read on any topic.

More relevant for the inventor today than you can imagine
I picked up this book on a whim, and found myself agog at Morse's veritable precognition about the telecommunication industry. I was quite unable to put the book down. This man may be long dead, but his ideas about leasing the right to use his telegraph, rather than opting to sell telegraph devices one-by-one, was a brilliant marketing decision on a par with today's great master's of business. The book is well-written and full of surprises, including what business decisions NOT to make. This is a great read for anyone who a)is in marketing; b) is in telecommunication; or c)mistrusts the Patent Office!

Fascinating Eye on the Early 19th C. & an American Original
SFB Morse is hardly a forgotten figure in history, but neither does he have the stature of an Edison in terms of the industrial development. As Lightning Man ably describes, the telegraph itself was more an invention of an amalgamation of a variety of predecessor developments in science and technology. Morse deserves ample credit for putting the pieces together and, more importantly, having the drive and acumen to evolve the invention into a successful business model, which was the key for its transformative effect on world technology. Yet his life, before the appearance of this excellent biography, seems shrouded in the myth of the lone inventor.

What's truly fascinating about his story and this book is the tale of the transition from the idea of the lone individual genius to the research lab, the difference between a great idea and a useful product, the move from progress being measured by the fevered work of a single man to the joint efforts of the company and the corporation. The story is one of a transformation of a culture, but which stays firmly focussed on its subject, Mr. Morse, in telling the tale.

Morse's "early" years as a painter are covered extremely well, and while the transition between his career as a painter to one as an inventor may seem bizarre and abrupt to the modern conception, Silverman illuminates this strange career change in the light of the times. Morse himself was a bridge between early American puritanism and a more modern philosophy that was to come. His philosophy of human nature and of himself had all the prejudice, bravado, arrogance, hypocrisy, idealism, greed, and Calvinist self-loathing that made the first half of the 19th century such a dynamic period. That Morse had to travel abroad to study fine art painting, a field considered by many Americans of the time to be vile and barely a craft, and sought the approval of the Academy of the day in Europe also neatly encapsulates the love-hate relationship of the period with European culture and learning. (Morse's own tortured schizophrenia on European political institutions is a subtheme: he is quick to criticize the European political systems of the day in his younger years, and all too eager to accept the emoluments and honors of royalty in his later ones.) The treatment of Morse's early years and his relationship with his then-even-more famous geographer father is done very deftly, without resorting to facile Freudian psychobabble, as we see Morse attempting to simultaneously win parental approval, find his own way in the world, make a name for himself, and try to see his own importance.

There's an American tragedy within Morse's life story as well, in the way he bitterly fought -- perhaps too hard in some ways -- to get the sole credit for inventing the telegraph that he is popularly (and inaccurately) given in the one-line biographical entries of modern histories. This fight was done partly for ego and celebrity, and partly to protect his patents and late fortune. It's a sad and cautionary tale how Morse was never able to settle into any kind of self-satisfaction as he became obsessed with his own legacy.

Morse was an American original, and there's a fascinating pull to the story of a man never happy with himself despite having reached conventional success in two quite different professions.