This book focuses on the contribution of Morse's colleagues and employees to the creation of the Test Telegraph, specifically those of Ezra Cornell and Joseph Henry. The book views Morse primarily as a businessman and consolidator of ideas rather than conflicts between Morese and his associates and his effort to present a finished, uniform system under his sole imprimatur. The bulk of the material addresses three periods in Morse's life: his visit to Albany in 1823, the period leading up to and just after the creation of the Baltimore-Washington test line in 1844 and the 1860 renewal of the Magnetic Relay. The battle between Morse and Cornell over the invention of the Magnetic Relay forms a central conflict in the drama. What emerges is a complex portrait of ambitious and brilliant men and the age in which they lived.