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become available in July 1870. On 28 December 1871, Meucci filed a one-year Caveat on his “Sound Telegraph,” requiring a $10 fee plus another $10 for the lawyers’ effort. A full patent including the attorney’s fee and drawings would cost $250 that his partners would not offer to Meucci. Figure 5 is a photocopy of an 1887 certificate testifying to the exis-
7
tence, date and number (3335) of that Caveat. Figure 6 is an
1880’s recreation of the 1859 Corradi drawing,8 the original of which could have been submitted with an 1871 patent application, were it to have been filed then. Figures 7-8 are photocopies of the first and last pages of the Caveat on dis- play at the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum9 possibly the “copy” referenced in the Certificate. Within the Caveat text, it is clear that Meucci had a clear vision of the system necessary for two-way vocal communication across considerable dis- tances, including the need for quiet.
Since two of his partners left New York in less than a year, Meucci approached Edward B. Grant of the American District Telegraph Company in New York in 1872 with a request that his “teletrofono” be tested on that company’s telegraph lines. Meucci explained that his July 1871 injuries had confined him to bed, near death at times, and that his wife sold most of his electrical instruments for money to pay medical expenses and for the necessities of life. Grant said that he would, in Meucci’s words “put at my disposal the telegraph lines needed, provid- ed I would bring in an exact explanation of the mode of oper- ation of the affair, and some drawings, and also some instru- ments to speak.”10 Meucci reproduced a pair of his “teletro- fono” from left over parts and others that he could afford to buy and gave them to Grant, who did not seem to know the merit of these instruments.
Enter Western Union electricians Frank L. Pope and George Prescott, and Frank’s brother, Henry Pope, a superin- tendent in the American District Telegraph Company which was a contractor to Western Union. What happened after 1872 is still a matter of speculation. Frank had the duty11 “...to examine the novelty and utility of the various new inventions relating to telegraphy, which were constantly being presented to the officers of these companies (Western Union and the old Stock Telegraph Co.) for approval or adoption.” George on the other hand “...had to act as a barrier to a flood of inventions brought to the company for attention.”12 Two years passed dur- ing which time nothing was reported to Meucci. In 1874, Meucci demanded “restitution of the descriptions and given designs,”14 to which Grant replied that he had mislaid them. Lacking even the $10 to renew the Caveat, Meucci allowed it to lapse on 28 December 1874.
According to sworn depositions, it was not until 1877 that Henry brought “...some Bell instruments that were placed in the hands of the American District Telegraph Company for I don’t know what purpose” to Frank’s house for testing on a telegraph line between the brothers’ homes. The instruments are said to have “...worked well, and they spent two or three hours talking.”11,12
Alexander Graham Bell recalled in a 1922 National Geographic article13 that in the 1860’s, in addition to formal schooling in Scotland, he observed his father and grandfather in their physiological experiments on speech utterances and “vibrations” and in the teaching of deaf students to produce
H. Res. 269
In the House of Representatives, U.S.,
June 11, 2002.
Whereas Antonio Meucci, the great Italian inventor, had a career that was both extraordinary and tragic;
Whereas, upon immigrating to New York, Meucci continued to work with ceaseless vigor on a project he had begun in Havana, Cuba, an invention he later called the ‘teletrofono’, involving electronic communications;
Whereas Meucci set up a rudimentary communica- tions link in his Staten Island home that connected the basement with the first floor, and later, when his wife began to suffer from crippling arthritis, he created a per- manent link between his lab and his wife's second floor bedroom;
Whereas, having exhausted most of his life's savings in pursuing his work, Meucci was unable to commercial- ize his invention, though he demonstrated his invention in 1860 and had a description of it published in New York's Italian language newspaper;
Whereas Meucci never learned English well enough to navigate the complex American business community;
Whereas Meucci was unable to raise sufficient funds to pay his way through the patent application process, and thus had to settle for a caveat, a one year renewable notice of an impending patent, which was first filed on December 28, 1871;
Whereas Meucci later learned that the Western Union affiliate laboratory reportedly lost his working models, and Meucci, who at this point was living on pub- lic assistance, was unable to renew the caveat after 1874;
Whereas in March 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, who conducted experiments in the same laboratory where Meucci's materials had been stored, was granted a patent and was thereafter credited with inventing the telephone;
Whereas on January 13, 1887, the Government of the United States moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation, a case that the Supreme Court found viable and remanded for trial;
Whereas Meucci died in October 1889, the Bell patent expired in January 1893, and the case was discon- tinued as moot without ever reaching the underlying issue of the true inventor of the telephone entitled to the patent; and
Whereas if Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci should be recognized, and his work in the inven- tion of the telephone should be acknowledged.
Attest: Clerk.
40 Acoustics Today, April 2007