Page 45 - Spring 2007

Fig. 8. Last text page of the 1871 Caveat. (Garibaldi-Meucci Museum)
November 1897–The U.S. Supreme Court trial was closed by
consent as moot. In all, some 18,000 pages of testimony and
information–never formally published–resulted from these tri-
als which were held over a 12-year period. Neither Bell nor the
Bell Telephone Company ever won any of these trials. Much of
this information is still available in major libraries throughout
7, 8
that was published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America in 1931,17 Meucci was not mentioned along with the 19th century works of Reiss, Dolbear, Blake, Drawbaugh and others because Meucci never developed a variable resistance transmitter, later called a “microphone.” It was not until 1933 that Guglielmo Marconi, “Father of the Radio,” in celebrating contributions to communications at the World exhibition in Chicago, displayed models of Meucci’s 1857 and 1867 ear-
5
piece-transmitters. These were constructed like illustrations
in Figs. 2-2 and 2-4, but with a handle. Marconi had com- missioned the Galileo Workshops in Florence, Italy to con- struct four telephone pairs from Meucci’s notes and sketches (Fig. 9). One pair remained at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, another in the National Science Museum in Milan, Italy, a third in the SIRTI
the U.S.
In H. A. Frederick’s paper on microphone development
Telecommunications Museum. Photographs of a pair of these handsets as well as models of earlier Meucci instruments and a rare copy of the famous Caveat are on exhibit at the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum.
Giovanni Schiavo published research on these matters in his 1958 book1 on Antonio Meucci. In 1998, an Italian telecommunications engineer Basilio Catania,8, 18 noticed a newspaper article about Antonio Meucci that claimed that he invented a “Sound Telegraph” before 1870. He found articles about Meucci in his company’s library, and more unpublished information about Meucci in libraries in Florence and Rome. Catania began serious research about Meucci upon his retire- ment in 1990 through a grant from his employer and visited Havana, Washington, Staten Island, and Bayonne, New Jersey. He found historical trial documents at the U.S. National archives and New York and New England archives. It was not until 1994 that he identified convincing evidence of Meucci’s inventive priorities in a 1885 translation of Meucci’s laborato- ry memorandum book by Michael Lemmi,6 a New York attor- ney and acquaintance of Meucci.
Most convincing was a sketch created by Meucci about
his telephone test wiring in 1862 that showed a large wire coil
midway along a long transmission line. Meucci had testified
that this coil made long distance voice reproduction stronger
19
and clearer. This phenomenon, inductive loading, was
rediscovered by Pupin some 30 years later; 18 years after the 1883 trial. In all, there were four noteworthy discoveries or observations by Meucci: (1) That inductive loading of long transmission lines will “increase the strength and clearness of the voice” Memorandum Book page 35, 1870 (patented by Pupin in 1900), (2) That thicker wires and preferably multi- ple copper wires wrapped in cotton or paper for insulation were needed to transmit the voice more clearly (realized today as the measure required to counteract the rise in wire resistance to high frequency currents via the “skin effect”) and to obtain a distance of about one mile,19 Memorandum Book, August 1870; (3) There is need for quiet isolation when listening to the transmitted voice; (4) That an anti-side tone circuit is feasible, where a talker does not have to listen to his own voice, and is represented by the second and separate transmission wire in Corradi’s drawing, Fig. 6. Discoveries 2 and 3 above were quoted in his 1871 Caveat. Discovery 3 is linked to the hidden benefit of the telephone; that confiden- tial privacy is assured since no one else can see or hear the messages transmitted; an advantage overlooked by most or all 1860-1875 financial backers.
Catania presented a lecture on Meucci at New York
20
Peter Vallone, then Speaker of the New York City Council, learned of this lecture and introduced City Council resolution No. 1556, to recognize the priority of Meucci’s invention of the telephone that passed unani- mously. Representative Eliot Engel, from New York then introduced U.S. House Resolution No. 269 to acknowledge Meucci as the true inventor of the telephone. On June 11, 2002, Jo Ann Davis of Virginia moved to suspend the house rules and agree to Resolution 269. After commemorating statements of several other representatives, H269 was passed
University in 2000.
21
In Catania’s words “This Florentine takes his place
with a two-thirds majority.
Antonio Meucci 43