Jedidiah Morse was a geographer whose textbooks became a staple for students in the United States. He was the father of the telegraphy pioneer and painter Samuel Morse, and his textbooks earned him the sobriquet of "father of American geography."

Samuel Finley Breese Morse was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer of Morse code in 1837 and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy.