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Antonio Meucci

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Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci (April 13, 1808–October 18, 1896) was an Italian inventor. He developed some form of voice communication apparatus in 1857. Antonio Meucci has long had champions, particularly in Italy, arguing he should be credited with the invention of "the telephone" (i.e. electrical voice communication). The Enciclopedia Italiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti calls him the "inventore del telefono" (inventor of the telephone).[1] Meucci set up the some kind of voice communication link in his Staten Island home that connected the basement with the first floor. He demonstrated his invention in 1860 and had a description of it published in New York ’s Italian language newspaper but was unable to raise sufficient funds to pay his way through the patent application. In 1876, Bell patented the electro-magnetic transmission of vocal sound by undulatory electric current. In 2001 the U. S. House of Representatives passed a resolution which says that Meucci's life and achievements of deserve recognition and that his work on telephony should be recognized, but does not say he "invented the telephone."

File:300px-Antonio Meucci.jpg
Antonio Meucci

Biography

Meucci was born in San Frediano, a borough of Florence, Italy. He studied chemical and mechanical engineering at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts and later worked in theatres as a stage technician. He married costume designer Ester Mochi on August 7, 1834. He was alleged to be part of a conspiracy involving the Italian unification movement in 1833–1834, and was imprisoned for three months.

In October 1835, Meucci and his wife left Florence, never to return. They emigrated to the Americas, stopping first in Cuba, where Meucci accepted a job at Gran Teatro de Tacón in Havana. Since 1848 Gran Teatro de Tacón was not active any more. There Meucci was asked by some friends doctors to work on Franz Anton Mesmer's therapy system on patients suffering from rheumatism. Meucci developed a popular method of using electric shocks to treat illness. He used to give his patients two conductors linked to a Bunsen battery and ending with a cork. He also kept two conductors linked to the same Bunsens battery. He used to sit in his laboratory, while the Bunsen battery was places in a second room and his patients in a third room. While providing a treatment to a friend, in his laboratory Meucci reportedly heard his friend's scream through the piece of copper wire that was between them, from the conductors he was keeping near his ear. In order to continue the experiment without hurting his patient, Meucci covered the copper wire with a piece of paper. Through this device he reportedly heard inarticulated human voice [2].

In 1850, Meucci and his wife immigrated to the United States, settling in the Clifton area of Staten Island, New York, where he would live for the remainder of his life. For two years Meucci hosted Giuseppe Garibaldi, who arrived in New York in 1850 and was a workman in Meucci's tallow candle factory.

According to an Italian researcher in telecommunications Basilio Catania and the Italian Society of Electrotechnics in 1856 Meucci constructed the first electromagnetic telephone, made of an electromagnet with a nucleus in the shape of a horseshoe bat, a diaphragm of animal skin, stiffened with potassium dichromate and keeping a metal disk stickened in the middle. The instrument was hosted in a cylindrical carton box [3]. He constructed this as a way to connect his second-floor bedroom to his basement laboratory, and thus communicate with his wife who was an invalid suffering from rheumatism.

Though his assets had been substantial, they were quickly used up in the United States. Not only was Meucci helping his countrymen to reach America, but there was also an expensive accident in one of his laboratories. His private finances dwindled so that he soon had to live on public funds and by depending on his friends. While he was recovering from injuries that befell him in a boiler explosion aboard the Staten Island Ferry, Westfield, Antonio Meucci's financial and health state was so bad that his wife Ester sold his drawings to a second-hand dealer to raise some money. Meucci then only had the money to pay for a "caveat" since 1871 to 1874 while looking for fundings for a true patent.

On the initiative of the Italian American deputate Vito Fossella, with the Resolution 269 the U.S. House of Representatives recognised the work previously done by Antonio Meucci: the Resolution recognised that in 1870 Meucci gave his prototypes to Western Union , which afterwards claimed they had lost them; at the same time, Meucci could not find money to renew his "caveat"; Bell worked in the same department where Meucci's prototypes were allegedly stored and later on patented the telephone as his own invention [4]. As recounted by an Italian newspaper columnist, Meucci gave his prototypes to Edward B. Grant, Vice President of the American District Telegraph Co. of New York (today Western Union). After two years, when Bell granted the patent and Meucci went to Western Union to protest, Grant claimed he had lost his documents; Alexander Graham Bell worked in the same department where Meucci's prototypes were allegedly stored [5]. (A 2005 tv series produced by the Italian National Broadcasting Network, depicts Edward B. Grant as cheating Meucci[6][7]).

When Bell secured his own patent in 1876 Meucci took Bell to court in order to state his priority, but being too poor to hire a legal team, he was defended only by lawyer Joe Melli, an orphan whom Meucci treated as a son. Witnesses of the chronology of Antonio Meucci's invention of the telephone were not taken into consideration in the trial.

While the trial "The U.S. Government Versus Alexander Graham Bell" was going on, the Bell telephone company obtained reason in the parallel trial "The U.S. Government Versus Antonio Meucci" by a sentence on July 19th 1887 by judge William J. Wallace, according to which Meucci had realised a mechanic and not an electric telephone. This sentence was regarded by historian Giovanni Schiavo as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in the history of the U.S. [8].

In fact, when the Bell telephone company sued Meucci's backers for patent infringement, their defense was that they could not have infringed on Bell's patent, since Meucci's "telephone" had never even worked![citation needed] The question of whether Bell was the true inventor of the telephone is perhaps the single most litigated fact in U.S. history, and the Bell patents were defended in some 600 cases. Bell never lost a case. HR 269 directly contradicts findings of courts in New York, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Ohio, Maryland, and numerous others states. (See among others American Bell Telephone Co. v. Dolbear, 15 Fed. Rep. 448; American Bell Telephone Co. v. Spencer, 8 Fed. Rep. 509, and American Bell Telephone Co. v. Molecular Telephone, 32 Fed. Rep. 214.) Contrary to the implications in HR 269, the U.S. courts looked into Antonio Meucci’s claims extensively and were very unequivocal in their findings. Meucci was a defendant in American Bell Telephone Co. v. Globe Telephone Co. and others (the court’s findings, reported in 31 Fed. Rep. 729) The judge was scathing in his criticism of Meucci’s claims and his behavior, and concluded that Meucci was deliberately involved in attempts to defraud investors. Meucci died before the Court reached a verdict and the case was closed.

Invention of the telephone

There exists much dispute over who deserves priority as the first inventor of the telephone, although it seems Alexander Graham Bell was the first to transmit articulate speech by undulatory currents of electricity. A history of the telephone says "To bait the Bell Company became almost a national sport. Any sort of claimant, with any sort of wild tale of prior invention, could find a speculator to support him. On they came, a motley array, `some in rags, some on nags, and some in velvet gowns.' One of them claimed to have done wonders with an iron hoop and a file in 1867; a second had a marvelous table with glass legs; a third swore that he had made a telephone in 1860, but did not know what it was until he saw Bell's patent; and a fourth told a vivid story of having heard a bullfrog croak via a telegraph wire which was strung into a certain cellar in Racine, in 1851 [9].

Meucci was recently recognized by the US House of Representatives, in House Resolution 269, dated 11 June 2002, as stated, "Expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci should be recognized, and his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged." The Parliament of Canada retaliated by passing a resolution recognizing Canadian immigrant Alexander Graham Bell as the "real inventor of the telephone." [1] [2]

An Italian researcher in telecommunications Basilio Catania and the Federazione Italiana di Elettrotecnica have devoted a Museum to Antonio Meucci making a chronology of his inventing the telephone and tracing the history of the two trials opposing Antonio Meucci and Alexander Graham Bell [3] [4]. They both support the claim that Antonio Meucci was the real inventor of the telephone.

According to Basilio Catania, in 1834 Meucci constructed a kind of acustic telephone as a way to communicate between the stage and control room at the theatre "Teatro della Pergola" in Florence. This kind of pipe-telephone is still working.

Also according to Catania, in 1856 Meucci constructed the first electromagnetic telephone, made of an electromagnet with a nucleus in the shape of a horseshoe bat, a diaphragm of animal skin, stiffened with potassium dichromate and keeping a metal disk stickened in the middle. The instrument was hosted in a cylindrical carton box [10]. He constructed this as a way to connect his second-floor bedroom to his basement laboratory, and thus communicate with his wife who was an invalid suffering from rheumatism.

In august 1870, Meucci obtains transmission of voice at a mile distance by using as a conductor a tress of copper wire isolated by cotton. According to an Affidavit of lawyer Michael Lemmi drawings and notes by Antonio Meucci dated september 27th 1970 show that Meucci understood inductive loading on long distance telephone lines 30 years before any other scientists.

It has been said that legally, "if Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell" (Mary Bellis).

Garibaldi-Meucci Museum

The Order of the Sons of Italy in America maintains a Garibaldi-Meucci Museum in Staten Island. The museum is located in a house that was built in 1840, purchased by Meucci in 1850, and rented to Giuseppe Garibaldi from 1850 to 1854. Exhibits include Meucci’s models and drawing and pictures relating to his life.

In the 1990 motion picture The Godfather Part III, the character Joey Zaza mentions Meucci as the inventor of the telephone.[citation needed]

In the television series The Sopranos, the character Tony Soprano also mentions Meucci as the inventor of the telephone, stating "he was robbed" of being given proper credit.[citation needed]

In 2005 the Italian National Broadcasting Network produced a tv series showing Meucci as the true inventor of the telephone and Alexander Graham Bell as obtaining credit by more or less legal meansMeucci L'Italiano che ha inventato il telefono Meucci L'uomo che ha inventato il telefono (pages in Italian)

See also

References

  1. ^ Kent, Allen (1978). Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science: Volume 25. CRC Press. ISBN 0-8247-2025-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help), p. 171 notes this claim in a discussion of nationalistic bias in encyclopedias
  2. ^ Meucci's original drawings. Page maintained by the Italian Society of Electrotechnics
  3. ^ Meucci's original drawings. Page maintained by the Italian Society of Electrotechnics
  4. ^ Vito Fossella's Press Release House on Resolution 269
  5. ^ Il Corriere della Sera - Domenica 16 Giugno 2002, pages in Italian
  6. ^ RAI "Meucci l'Italiano che ha inventato il telefono"
  7. ^ RAI International "Meucci l'uomo che ha inventato il telefono", pages in Italian
  8. ^ Catania Basilio "Antonio Meucci una vita per la scienza e per l'Italia, vol.1 "Antonio Meucci una vita per la scienza e per l'Italia, vol.2(in Italian), summary of Meucci's life and work and his trial against Alexander Graham Bell.
  9. ^ Casson, Herbert N., "The History of the Telephone," Chicago: McClurg, 1910, p. 96-97
  10. ^ Meucci's original drawings. Page maintained by the Italian Society of Electrotechnics

Further reading

Garibaldi-Meucci Museum:

US Congress Resolution 269, recognizing Meucci:

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