Scientists and Inventors
ANTONIO MEUCCI (1808-1898)
Inventor of the Telephone
An invention
none of us could live without, a tool of modern communications so basic that
many of today's business and social activities would be inconceivable in its
absence, the telephone, is at the center of a series of events so strange as
to amount to a "whodunit."
Absolutely fascinated by scientific research of any kind, Meucci read every
scientific tract he could get his hands on, and spent all his spare time in
Havana on research, inventing a new method of galvanizing metals which he
applied to military equipment for the Cuban government; at the same time, he
continued his work in the theater and pursued his endless experiments.
One these touched off a series of fateful events. Meucci had developed a
method of using electric shocks to treat illness which had become quite
popular in Havana. One day, while preparing to administer a treatment to a
friend, Meucci heard an exclamation of the friend, who was in the next room,
over the piece of copper wire running between them. The inventor realized
immediately that he held in his hand something much more important than any
other discovery he had ever made, and he spent the next ten years bringing
the principle to a practical stage. The following ten years were to be spent
perfecting the original device and trying to promote its commercialization.
With this goal, he left Cuba for New York in 1850, settling in the Clifton
section of Staten Island, a few miles from New York City. Here, in addition
to his problems of a strictly financial nature, Meucci realized that he
could not communicate adequately in English, having relied on the
similarities of Italian and Spanish during his Cuban residence. Furthermore,
in Staten Island, he found himself surrounded by Italian political refugees;
Giuseppe Garibaldi, when exiled from Italy, spent his period of United
States residency in Meucci's house. The scientist tried to help his Italian
friends by devising any number of industrial projects using new or improved
manufacturing methods for such diverse products as beer, candles, pianos and
paper. But he knew nothing of management, and even those initiatives which
succeeded were to have their profits eaten up by unscrupulous or inept
managers or by the refugees themselves, who spent more time in political
discussion than they did in active work. Meanwhile, Meucci continued to
dedicate his time to perfecting the telephone. In 1855, when his wife became
partially paralyzed, Meucci set up a telephone system which joined several
rooms of his house with his workshop in another building nearby, the first
such installation anywhere. In 1860, when the instrument had become
practical, Meucci organized a demonstration to attract financial backing in
which a singer's voice was clearly heard by spectators a considerable
distance away. A description of the apparatus was soon published in one of
New York's Italian newspapers and the report together with a model of the
invention were taken to Italy by a certain Signor Bendelari with the goal of
arranging production there; nothing came of this trip, nor of the many
promises of financial support which had been forthcoming after the
demonstration.
The years which followed brought increasing poverty to an embittered and
discouraged Meucci, who nonetheless continued to produce a series of new
inventions. His precarious financial situation, however, often constrained
him to sell the rights to his inventions, and still left him without the
wherewithal to take out final patents on the telephone.
A dramatic event, in which Meucci was severely burned in the explosion of
the steamship Westfield returning from New York, brought things to an even
more tragic state. While Meucci lay in hospital, miraculously alive after
the disaster, his wife sold many of his working models (including the
telephone prototype) and other materials to a secondhand dealer for six
dollars. When Meucci sought to buy these precious objects back, he was told
that they had been resold to an "unknown young man" whose identity remains a
mystery to this day.
Crushed, but not beaten, Meucci worked night and day to reconstruct his
invention and to produce new designs and specifications, clearly
apprehensive that someone could steal the device before he could have it
patented. Unable to raise the sum for a definitive patent ($250,
considerable in those days), he took recourse in the caveat or notice of
intent, which was registered on December 28, 1871 and renewed in 1872 and
1873 but, fatefully, not thereafter.
Immediately after he received certification of the caveat, Meucci tried
again to demonstrate the enormous potential of the device, delivering a
model and technical details to the vice president of one of the affiliates
of the newly established Western Union Telegraph Company, asking permission
to demonstrate his "Talking Telegraph" on the wires of the Western Union
system. However, each time that Meucci contacted this vice president, a
certain Edward B. Grant, he was told that there had been no time to arrange
the test. Two years passed, after which Meucci demanded the return of his
materials, only to be told that they had been "lost." It was then 1874.
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell filed a patent which does not really describe
the telephone but refers to it as such. When Meucci learned of this, he
instructed his lawyer to protest to the U.S. Patent Office in Washington,
something that was never done. However, a friend did contact Washington,
only to learn that all the documents relevant to the "Talking Telegraph"
filed in Meucci's caveat had been "lost." Later investigation produced
evidence of illegal relationships linking certain employees of the Patent
Office and officials of Bell's company. And later, in the course of
litigation between Bell and Western Union, it was revealed that Bell had
agreed to pay Western Union 20 percent of profits from commercialization of
his "invention" for a period of 17 years. Millions of dollars were involved,
but the price may been cheaper than revealing facts better left hidden, from
Bell's point of view.
In the court case of 1886, although Bell's lawyers tried to turn aside
Meucci's suit against their client, he was able to explain every detail of
his invention so clearly as to leave little doubt of his veracity, although
he did not win the case against the superior - and vastly richer - forces
fielded by Bell. Despite a public statement by the then Secretary of State
that "there exists sufficient proof to give priority to Meucci in the
invention of the telephone," and despite the fact that the United States
initiated prosecution for fraud against Bell's patent, the trial was
postponed from year to year until, at the death of Meucci in 1896, the case
was dropped.
The story of Antonio Meucci is still little known, yet it is one of the most
extraordinary episodes in American history, albeit an episode in which
justice was perverted. Still, the genius and perseverance of an Italian
immigrant - genius, poor businessman, tenacious defender of his rights
against incredible odds and grinding poverty - is a story which must be
told. Antonio Meucci is waiting to be recognized as the inventor of a key
element in our modern culture.
LINKS:
Garibaldi-Meucci Museum
- Staten Island, NY
