History of the telephone part 1

The real inventor

The first patent on the telephone was registered on February 14th 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell. On the same day, two hours later, Elisha Gray registered a second patent. Thomas Edison registered his patent on the telephone on May 16th 1876.

Bell was the first with his patent and therefore was always considered the inventor of the telephone, but the real inventor was someone else. On June 11th, 2002, 126 years later, the United States Senate issued a declaration naming not Bell, but Mr. Antonio Meucci as the inventor of the telephone.

Antonio Meucci was a poor Italian who settled in Cuba. In 1849 he gave a demonstration of a working telephone at an exhibition in Havana. He called his invention “Teletrophone”. Meucci moved to the U.S.A. and gave more public demonstrations of the Teletrophone in New York in 1854 and also in 1860. Several hundred people saw these demonstrations and they were reported in different newspapers. The last demonstration in 1860 is documented in detail.

In 1871 Meucci wanted to register a patent on his invention but it cost 250 dollars. He did not have the money so he only applied for “Patent Pending” which cost only 10 dollars and was valid for 3 years. In 1874 he again had to pay 10 dollars to renew his “Patent Pending” but he did not have the money.

In 1876 Bell registered his patent. He could do this because the Meucci patent had expired. If Meucci had had the 10 dollars to pay for his patent in 1874, the patent of Bell would have been rejected.

It was a tragic story for Meucci, a brilliant scientist and inventor but also an immigrant with no money and no connections. To make things worse, he was also badly wounded in a fire and was ill for a long time.

Meucci sued Bell for stealing his ideas but the hearings were delayed again and again. Only in 1889 the Supreme Court decided that there was enough evidence to start the case against Bell but the trial was not concluded because Meucci died in 1896. He was 88 years old and had no heir.

In 2006 The United States Senate corrected the injustice made to Meucci so long ago by declaring that Meucci is the real inventor of the telephone.