Typesetting and printing “Sacramento” in Morse Code for Learn Your Name In Morse Code Day (Jan. 11)
January 11th is National Learn Your Name In Morse Code Day! On this day in 1838, Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail transmitted the first successful telegraph message. Morse developed in the 1830s what became known as Morse Code, the primary language used in the transmission of messages using an electric telegraph machine.
The telegraph, using Morse Code, is intimately tied to the development of Sacramento starting in the 1850s. In 1854, the Alta Telegraph Company built a telegraph line between Sacramento and Nevada City. Other lines started to connect Sacramento to other cities in California. On October 24, 1861, the first transcontinental telegraph message was transmitted to Sacramento, ending the Pony Express overland mail service two days later. California was finally able to get news from the east coast within hours rather than 10 days by the Pony Express. The Sacramento Daily Union and the Sacramento Bee even started to include a “from the telegraph” section in their newspapers.
For today, Jared typeset and letterpress printed “Sacramento” in Morse Code. This was actually a quite challenging video to create, not for the typesetting, but rather to find a typecase with enough periods and hyphens. We might have roughly 350 fonts in our print shop exhibit but many have just a small sampling of sorts (individual pieces of type). The Morse Code is set in 30 point Caslon and “Sacramento” is set in 48 point Caslon Openface font.
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