The St. Paul Echo

Won Success Both as Artist and Inventor
Samuel Finley Breese Morse had two distinct careers and climbed from the bottom to success in each of them.
He is best known for his invention of the telegraph, but before he even dreamed of the invention, he had experienced the complete career of an artist. He began as a strolling peddler, barely keeping clothes on his back and food in his stomach by painting portraits of New England country folk as he wandered from village to village. In less than a score of years, by dogged persistence, he became the foremost portrait painter in America before whom sat presidents and generals and statesmen, and he was head of the National Academy of Design. His work was acclaimed at home and abroad.
Then, just at a moment when he reached the height of fame as an artist, just when he was returning from triumphs in Europe, with bright prospects for financial ease and still higher honors, an inspiration from the clouds caused him to renounce all he had gained and begin again-this time as an inventor with a great idea.
Popular Science Monthly.