Samuel F.B. Morse’s Letter of Resignation from the Great Century Association
He reluctantly resigns from the club, whose members included William Cullen Bryant, Winslow Homer, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Frederick Law Olmsted, eight presidents, and members of the Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Roosevelt, Morgan, and Astor families
Samuel Finley Breese Morse established himself as a painter, and to improve his already considerable skills he went to Europe to study art in 1832. While returning home, Morse conceived the idea of an electric telegraph as the result of hearing a conversation about the newly discovered electromagnet. He probably made his...
Samuel Finley Breese Morse established himself as a painter, and to improve his already considerable skills he went to Europe to study art in 1832. While returning home, Morse conceived the idea of an electric telegraph as the result of hearing a conversation about the newly discovered electromagnet. He probably made his first working model of the telegraph by 1835. After completing the invention and years trying to get support for it, in 1843 he was finally able to obtain financial support from Congress for the first telegraph line in the United States, from Baltimore to Washington. In 1844 the line was completed, and on May 24 he sent the first message, “What hath God wrought.” The telegraph was one of the most important inventions of the 19th century.
The Century Association was, and remains, a private social, arts, and dining club in New York City, Founded in 1847. Its clubhouse is located on West 43rd Street near Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. It is primarily a club for men and women with distinction in literature or the arts. One of its members in the early years was inventor and artist Samuel F.B. Morse. Other prominent members of the club have included artists and writers William Cullen Bryant, Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Frederick Law Olmsted, eight presidents, 29 Nobel prize winners, and members of the Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Roosevelt, Morgan, and Astor families.
Autograph letter signed, May 24, 1860, to the President of the Century Association. “I find as years and cares accumulate that it is necessary for me to retire more within the precincts of my own domestic circle. I have never been able to attend the meetings of the Association, or indeed to visit its rooms since I was in so gratifying a manner elected into your body.
“I am more than half the year away from the city, and when I hear the duties in my own household and study make it impossible for me to enjoy the advantages or pleasures of your association. Be pleased, therefore, to tender to the association my resignation, with the assurance of my sincere respect for each and all of its members.”
This is an increasingly uncommon letter of Morse, associating him with other great men of the day.
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