The following year, the device was modified to emboss the paper with dots and dashes. He gave a public demonstration in 1838, but it wasn't until five years later that Congress, reflecting public apathy, awarded him $30,000 to construct an experimental telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore, a distance of 40 miles.

Six years later, members of Congress witnessed the transmission of messages over part of the telegraph line. Before the line had reached Baltimore, the Whig party held its national convention there and nominated Henry Clay on May 1, 1844. The news was hand-carried to Annapolis Junction, between Washington and Baltimore, where Morse's partner Alfred Vail wired it to the capitol. This was the first news dispatched by electric telegraph.

The original Morse telegraph printed code on tape. However, in the United States, the operation developed into a process in which messages were sent by key and received by ear. A trained Morse operator could transmit 40 to 50 words per minute. Automatic transmission, introduced in 1914, handled more than twice that number. In 1900, Canadian Fredrick Creed invented the Creed Telegraph System, a way to convert Morse code to text.