Florence, Italy
Meucci was born at Via dei Serragli, 44 in San Frediano, a borough of Florence, Italy, on April 13, 1808. He studied chemical and mechanical engineering at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts and later worked at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence as a stage technician, assisting Artemio Canovetti.In 1834 Meucci constructed a type of acoustic telephone to communicate between the stage and control room at the Teatro della Pergola. This telephone was constructed on the principles of pipe-telephones used on ships and is still working.
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 with Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi.
Havana, Cuba
In October 1835, Meucci and his wife left Florence, never to return. They had accepted the proposal of a Spanish theater manager, Don Francisco Martì y Torrens, and emigrated to the Americas, stopping first in Cuba, then a Spanish province, where Meucci accepted a job at what was then called the Great Tacón Theater in Havana (at the time, the greatest theater in the Americas). In Havana he constructed a system for water purification and reconstructed the Gran Teatro, which had since been almost entirely destroyed by a hurricane.In 1848 his contract with the Governor expired. Meucci was asked by a friend's doctors to work on Franz Anton Mesmer's therapy system on patients suffering from rheumatism. In 1849 Meucci developed a popular method of using electric shocks to treat illness and subsequently made an experiment developing a device through which one could hear inarticulated human voice. He called this device "telegrafo parlante" (lit. "talking telegraph").
In 1850, the third renewal of his contract with Don Francisco Martì y Torrens expired. Meucci's friendship with the General Giuseppe Garibaldi made him a suspect citizen in Cuba. On the other hand, the fame reached by Samuel F. B. Morse in the United States encouraged Meucci to make his living through inventions.
Staten Island, New York City, USA
On April 13, 1850 Meucci and his wife left Havana to immigrate to the United States, settling in the Clifton area of Staten Island, New York, where he would live for the remainder of his life. In Staten Island he helped several countrymen committed to the Italian unification movement ("Risorgimento") and escaped from political persecution. He invested the substantial capital he had earned in Cuba in a tallow candle factory (the first of this kind in America) employing several Italian exiles. For two years Meucci also hosted in his cottage his friends the General Giuseppe Garibaldi and Colonel Paolo Bovi Campeggi, who arrived in New York two months after Meucci. They worked in Meucci's factory.In 1854 Meucci's wife Ester became definitively invalid because of a serious form of rheumatoid arthritis, whereas Meucci continued his experiments. He is reported to have bought material from a certain Charles Chester's shop in New York.
Electromagnetic telephone
Meucci had studied the principles of electro magnetic voice transmission for many years, but was purportedly able to realise his dream of transmitting his voice through wires in 1856. Meucci had finally built the first prototype. He installed a telephone-like device within his house in order to communicate with his wife who was ill at the time. Some of Meucci's notes purportedly written in 1857 describes the basic principle of electromagnetic voice transmission or in other words, the telephone:«consiste in un diaframma vibrante e in un magnete elettrizzato da un filo a spirale che lo avvolge. Vibrando, il diaframma altera la corrente del magnete. Queste alterazioni di corrente, trasmesse all'altro capo del filo, imprimono analoghe vibrazioni al diaframma ricevente e riproducono la parola».
Translation: "It consists of a vibrating diaphragm and an electrified magnet from a wire that wraps around it in a spiral. The vibrating diaphragm alters the current of the magnet. These alterations of current are all transmitted to the other end of the wire, creating analogous vibrations to the receiving diaphragm and thus, reproduce the words."
Meucci constructed the first electromagnetic telephone. He built his working prototype as a way of connecting his second-floor bedroom to his basement laboratory, and thus being able to communicate with his wife. Between 1856 and 1870, Meucci developed more than 30 different kinds of telephones on the basis of this prototype.
In about 1858, the painter Nestore Corradi made a sketch of Meucci's ideas (this drawing was used as the image on a stamp produced in 2003 by the Italian Postal and Telegraph Society).
Meucci had very good ideas of developing his prototype, however he didn't have the economical means to keep his company afloat so as to finance his invention. His candle factory went bankrupt and Meucci was then obliged to look for funds from rich Italian families. Unfortunately his efforts were in vain.
In 1860 Meucci asked his friend Enrico Bandelari to look for Italian capitalists willing to finance his project. However, military expeditions led by General Garibaldi in Italy had made the political situation in that country too unstable for anybody to invest. Meucci then purportedly published his invention in the New York Italian-language newspaper "L'Eco d'Italia", although no copy of such reports have ever been located dating back to searches prior to his court case in the 1880s.
Bankruptcy
At the same time, Meucci was led to poverty by some fraudulent debtors. On November 13, 1861 his cottage was auctioned. The purchaser allowed the Meuccis to live in the cottage without paying rent, but Meucci's private finances dwindled so that he soon had to live on public funds and by depending on his friends.As mentioned in William J. Wallace's ruling, during the years 1859, 1860, and 1861 Meucci was in close business and social relations with William E. Ryder, who was interested in his inventions, paid the expenses of his experiments, and invested money in Meucci’s inventions. Their close working friendship continued until 1867.
In August 1870, Meucci reportedly was able to capture a transmission of articulated human voice at the distance of a mile by using a copper plait as a conductor, insulated by cotton. He called this device, the "telettrofono". 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 and devices to a second-hand dealer to raise some money.
Caveat=
On December 12, 1871 Meucci set up an agreement with Angelo Zilio Grandi (Secretary of the Italian Consulate in New York), Angelo Antonio Tremeschin (entrepreneur), Sereno G. P. Breguglia Tremeschin (businessman), in order to constitute the Telettrofono Company. The constitution was notarized by Angelo Bertolino, a Notary Public of New York. Although their society funded him with $20, only $15 was needed to file for a full patent application. The caveat his lawyer submitted to the US Patent Office on December 28, 1871 was numbered 3335 and titled "Sound Telegraph".
This is the text of Meucci's caveat, omitting legal details of the Petition, Oath, and Jurat:
Analysis
Meucci repeatedly focused on insulating the electrical conductor and even insulating the persons communicating, but does not explain why this would be desirable. The mouth piece is like a "speaking trumpet" so that "the sound concentrated upon the wire" is communicated to the other person, but he does not say that the sound is to be converted to variable electrical conduction in the wire. "Another instrument is also applied to the ears," but he does not say that variable electrical conduction in the wire is to be converted to sound. In the third claim, he claims "a sound conductor which is also an electrical conductor, as a means of communication by sound" which is consistent with acoustic sound vibrations in the wire that somehow get transmitted better if electrical conductors such as a wire or metallic tube are used. He emphasizes that the conductors "for mouth and ears... must be metallic", but does not explain why this would be desirable. He mentions "communication with the ground" but does not suggest that a ground return must complete a circuit if only "the wire" (singular case, not plural) is used between the sender's mouth piece and the receiver's ear piece, with one or the other person being electrically insulated from the ground by means of glass insulators ("...consists in isolating two persons... by placing them upon glass insulators; employing glass, for example, at the foot of the chair or bench on which each sits, and putting them in communication by means of a telegraph wire.").
Conspicuous by its absence is any mention of devices for converting sound to electrical waves and electrical waves to sound. There is no mention of an electromagnet, even though morse telegraphs use electromagnets. There is no mention of coils of wire or permanent magnets or magnetism. Neither is there any mention of a battery or other source of electrical power, nor of a diaphragm.
Business supporters
The members of Telettrofono Company either died or left New York City.In summer 1872 Meucci and his friend Angelo Bertolino went to Edward B. Grant, Vice President of American District Telegraph Co. of New York, to ask for help. Meucci asked him for permission to test his telephone apparatus on the company's telegraph lines. He gave Grant a description of his prototype and a copy of his caveat. After waiting two years, Meucci went to Grant and asked him to be given back his documents, but Grant answered he had lost them.
(Critics dispute the claim that Meucci could not afford to file for a patent, as he filed for and was granted full patents in 1872, 1873, 1875, and 1876, at the cost of $35 each, for inventions unrelated to the telephone. However, others suggest that Meucci may not have felt his telephone invention had much commercial value, and prioritized his focus, energy and limited budget on inventions that appeared to have more immediate financial returns. When Meucci learned that Bell filed a patent that infringed on his invention, Meucci now understood that Bell's interest meant there was commercial value and then protested.)
About 1873 a certain Bill Carroll from Boston, who had news about Meucci's invention, asked him to construct a "telephone for divers". This device should allow divers to communicate with people on the surface. In Meucci's drawing, this device is essentially an electromagnetic telephone encapsulated to be waterproof.
On December 28, 1874, Meucci's caveat expired.
When Bell secured his own patent in 1876, Meucci took Bell to court in order to state his priority on the grounds of patent infringement. Being too poor to hire a legal team, Meucci was defended only by lawyer Joe Melli, an orphan whom Meucci treated as a son.
While the "''American Bell Telephone Company v. Globe Telephone Company, Antonio Meucci, et al."'' trial was going on, the Bell Telephone Company became involved with another notable trial ''"The U.S. Government v. American Bell Telephone Company"'', instigated by the Pan-Electric Telephone Company which had secretly given the U.S. Attorney General 10% of its shares, employed him as a director, and then asked him to void Bell's patent. Had he succeeded in overturning Bell's patent, he stood to become exceeding rich by reason of his shares.
Trial
Meucci's telephone was said to be described in the ''L'Eco d'Italia'' newspaper of New York in the beginning of 1861, though no issues of the 1861-1863 period are available in the libraries of the United States. Having apparently been destroyed in a fire, Antonio Meucci had to swear in court proceedings what he remembered he wrote in the newspaper.The Havana experiments were briefly mentioned in a letter by Meucci, published by ''Il Commercio di Genova'' of 1 December 1865 and by ''L'Eco d'Italia'' of October 21st 1865 (both existing today).
One of the most important pieces of evidence brought up in the trial was Antonio Meucci's "Memorandum Book". This book, produced by ''Rider&Clark'', contained Antonio Meucci's noted drawings and records since 1862 up to 1882. In the trial, Antonio Meucci was accused of having produced records after Alexander Graham Bell's invention and back-dated them. As proof, the prosecutor brought forward the fact that the ''Rider&Clark'' company was founded only in 1863. In the trial, Antonio Meucci said that William E. Rider himself, one of the owners, had given him a copy of the memorandum book in 1862, however Meucci was not believed.
On 13 January 1887, the United States Government moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation. After a series of decisions and reversals, the Bell company won a decision in the Supreme Court, though a couple of the original claims from the lower court cases were left undecided. By the time that the trial wound its way through nine years of legal battles, the U.S. prosecuting attorney had died and the two Bell patents (No. 174,46 and dated 7 March 1876 and No. 186,787 dated 30 January 1877) were no longer in effect, although the presiding judges agreed to continue the proceedings due to the case's importance as a "precedent." With a change in administration and charges of conflict of interest (on both sides) arising from the original trial, the U.S. Attorney General dropped the law suit on 30 November 1897 leaving several issues undecided on the merits.
During a deposition filed for the 1887 trial, Meucci also claimed to have created the first working model of a telephone in Italy in 1834. In 1886, in the first of three cases in which he was involved, Meucci took the stand as a witness in the hopes of establishing his invention's priority. Meucci's evidence in this case was disputed due to lack of material evidence of his inventions as his working models were reportedly lost at the laboratory of American District Telegraph (ADT) of New York. ADT did not join with Western Union to become its subsidiary until 1901.
Meucci's patent caveat had described a 'lover's telegraph' which transmitted sound vibrations mechanically across a taut wire, a conclusion that was also noted in various reviews (''"The court further held that the caveat of Meucci did not describe any elements of an electric speaking telephone….."'', and ''"The court held that Meucci's device consisted of a mechanical telephone consisting of a mouthpiece and an earpiece connected by a wire, and that beyond this the invention of Meucci was only imagination."'') Meucci's work, like many other inventors of the period, was based on earlier acoustic principles and despite evidence of earlier experiments, the final case involving Meucci was eventually dropped upon his death.
Death
Meucci became ill in March 1889, and died on October 18, 1889 in Clifton, Staten Island in New York City.Adapted from the Wikipedia article Antonio Meucci, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
