Antonio Meucci: Encyclopedia - Antonio Meucci

Antonio Meucci

Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci (April 13, 1808–October 18, 1896) was an Italian inventor. In Italy, he is generally recognized as the inventor of the telephone. Until recently, the rest of the world widely attributed this to Alexander Graham Bell, but the matter was thrown into controversy when, in June 2002, the United States House of Representatives passed a symbolic bill officially recognizing Meucci as the true inventor of the telephone.

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. There Meucci had developed a popular method of using electric shocks to treat illness. While providing a treatment to a friend, Meucci reportedly heard his friend's scream through the piece of copper wire that was between them.

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.

Meucci constructed a form of telephone circa 1854 as a way to connect his second-floor bedroom to his basement laboratory, as his wife was an invalid suffering from rheumatism. Before then he had constructed a kind of pipe-telephone that transported sound through a pipe, as a way to communicate between the stage and control room at the theatre.

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. It has also been said that his wife sold some of his inventions, including the telephone, to raise cash.

Antonio Meucci - Patents

Besides electric voice transferral, he invented and patented many devices that were based on chemical and mechanical processes.

Antonio Meucci - Recognition

For more than a century, everywhere but in Italy, Alexander Graham Bell has been considered the inventor of the telephone. However, Meucci was recognized as the first inventor of the telephone by the US House of Representatives, in House Resolution 269, dated 11 June 2002. The Parliament of Canada retaliated by passing a bill recognizing Canadian immigrant Alexander Graham Bell as the only inventor of the telephone.

See also

• Philipp Reis

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Antonio Meucci", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki