INVENTOR

Alfred Vail

1807 - 1859

Photo of Alfred Vail

Icon of person Alfred Vail

Alfred Lewis Vail (September 25, 1807 – January 18, 1859) was an American machinist and inventor. Along with Samuel Morse, Vail was central in developing and commercializing American telegraphy between 1837 and 1844.Vail and Morse were the first two telegraph operators on Morse's first experimental line between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, and Vail took charge of building and managing several early telegraph lines between 1845 and 1848. He was also responsible for several technical innovations of Morse's system, particularly the sending key and improved recording registers and relay magnets. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Alfred Vail has received more than 341,868 page views. His biography is available in 26 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 23 in 2019). Alfred Vail is the 153rd most popular inventor (down from 143rd in 2019), the 2,169th most popular biography from United States (down from 1,957th in 2019) and the 39th most popular American Inventor.

Memorability Metrics

  • 340k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 57.31

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 26

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 7.70

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 2.24

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Page views of Alfred Vails by language

Over the past year Alfred Vail has had the most page views in the with 25,826 views, followed by Spanish (3,905), and Italian (2,842). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are Malagasy (49.71%), Egyptian Arabic (46.70%), and Italian (37.16%)

Among INVENTORS

Among inventors, Alfred Vail ranks 153 out of 426. Before him are Uziel Gal, Edwin Howard Armstrong, Viktor Schauberger, Bob Kahn, Jang Yeong-sil, and Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. After him are Gideon Sundback, Peter Henlein, Heinrich Göbel, Fausto Veranzio, Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky, and Garrett Morgan.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1807, Alfred Vail ranks 16. Before him are Princess Feodora of Leiningen, Joseph Petzval, Harriet Taylor Mill, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Théophile-Jules Pelouze, and Princess Charlotte of Württemberg. After him are Joseph E. Johnston, Abdülkerim Nadir Pasha, Princess Cecilia of Sweden, Aloysius Bertrand, Amir Kabir, and Thiệu Trị. Among people deceased in 1859, Alfred Vail ranks 23. Before him are John Brown, Stephanie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Abd al-Rahman of Morocco, John Austin, and Thomas Babington Macaulay. After him are Carl Adolph Agardh, Yoshida Shōin, Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi, Louis Poinsot, Robert Stephenson, and Karl Baedeker.

Others Born in 1807

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Others Deceased in 1859

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Alfred Vail ranks 2,169 out of 20,380. Before him are Ken Wilber (1949), Barry Seal (1939), Tony Levin (1946), Vincent Schiavelli (1948), Jessye Norman (1945), and Edgar Snow (1905). After him are Stefanie Powers (1942), Sofia Coppola (1971), Jack Warden (1920), Charles Curtis (1860), Cissy Houston (1933), and George Phillips Bond (1825).

Others born in United States

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Among INVENTORS In United States

Among inventors born in United States, Alfred Vail ranks 39. Before him are Richard Jordan Gatling (1818), Robert Moog (1934), Sequoyah (1770), Elias Howe (1819), Edwin Howard Armstrong (1890), and Bob Kahn (1938). After him are Garrett Morgan (1877), Royal Rife (1888), Philo Farnsworth (1906), Charles Martin Hall (1863), Larry Sanger (1968), and Samuel Pierpont Langley (1834).

American born Inventors

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