Samuel F.B. Morse led 'accursed life' [video 57min]

Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F.B. Morse is Kenneth Silverman's biography of the inventor of the electric telegraph. In an interview from 2003, the author describes Morse as an easily depressed man who dabbled in inventing; and explains that, although Morse's first love was painting, in 1843 he secured funds from Congress to construct the first telegraph line in the USA, from Baltimore to Washington DC. Silverman is an English professor at New York University and winner of the Bancroft Prize in American History and the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. His other books include A Cultural History of the American Revolution; Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance; Houdini!!! The Career of Ehrich Weiss; and The Life and Times of Cotton Mather.