The Telephone: an Invention with too many Fathers

1. The Telephone: an Invention with too many Fathers by Paolo Brenni CNR, Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica, Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza Florence

3. Who was Antonio Meucci ?

4. Meucci in the popular culture: The Sopranos

5. But not everybody agree…… “If Daniel Drawbaugh was a truly clown, as he was labelled by the Bell Telephone lawyers, then Antonio Meucci could easily have earned the title of “super clown.” Lewis Coe, The Telephone and Its several Inventors, 1995

6. Meucci was born in Florence the 13 April 1808

7. In 1821 Meucci was admitted in the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence.

8. Between 1833 and 1835 he worked as stage technician at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence

9. Part of the acoustic telephone installed by Meucci in 1834 in the Teatro la Pergola

10. In 1853 Meucci sailed to Cuba and settled in Havana.

11. The Tácon Theatre of Havana. Meucci worked there for 15 years as a “stage engineer”.

12. The first electrotherapy experiment performed in 1849 in Havana

13. The second experiment in Cuba

14. Clifton Staten Island In 1850 Meucci moved to the USA and settled in Clifton (Staten Island)

15. Meucci’s house in Clifton

16. In Clifton, Meucci met Giuseppe Garibaldi. With him he opened a candle factory in 1850.

17. Some of the Meucci’s inventions and industrial activities in NY • Experiments and improvements of the telephone • First factory of stearic candles in USA (1850) • Beer factory in Clifden (1856) • Improvements of paraffin candles (1858-60) • Experiment with dry batteries (1860) • New kerosene lamp (1862) • Siccative oil paint (1862-63) • Process to obtain paper pulp (1864-65) • Opening of a paper factory (1867) • Invention of an effervescent drink and of a sauce for food (1871-73) • Process for refining crude oil (1874) • Invention of various scientific instruments (1875-76) • Method for preventing noise on elevated raylways (1878) • Plastic paste (1883)

18. The telephone line established by Meucci in 1854-1855 in Clifton.

19. Meucci’s first electromagnetic telephone (about 1856)

20. Meucci’s electromagnetic telephone of 1857

21. The “anti side tone” system conceived by Meucci in the late 1850’s

22. Examples of inductive loads from Meucci’s notebook (1862)

23. Meucci's "best telephone" of 1864-65

24. In July 1871 Meucci was severely injured by the explosion of the boiler of the ferry Westfield

25. Meucci’s wife sold all the telephonic apparatus and the prototypes for paying the doctor • In December 1871 Meucci founded the “Telettrofono Company” but a few months later the society had to be dissolved. • In the same year, he filed a “caveat” for his “sound telegraph” • In 1872, Mr. Edward B. Grant, Vice- President of the District Telegraph Company(Western Union)promised to test Meucci’s apparatus on his lines. But nothing happened. Meucci’s documents and apparatus went lost • In 1874 Meucci could not renew the “caveat”, which expired

26. In the meantime………

27. Some physical principles involved in the first telephones • Imperfect contact • Variable resistance • Variable capacity • Electromagnetic induction • Magnetostriction

28. Charles Bourseul (1829-1912) in 1854 proposed an electric telephone

30. Johann Philipp Reis (1834-1874) and his telephonic apparatus made around 1860.

31. Imperfect contact transmitter Magnetostriction receiver

32. Innocenzo Manzetti (1826-1877) and a possible reconstruction of his “speaking telegraph” of 1865

33. Elisha Grey (1835-1901) and his telephone (1876)

34. Variable (liquid) resistance transmitter Electromagnetic receiver

35. Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) and his patent of 1876

36. Replicas of some earlier Bell’s transmitter and receiver

37. Bell’s electromagnetic telephonic apparatus in the 1877 patent

38. And many others… Paul La Cour (1846-1908) Cromwell Fleetwood Varley (1828 - 1883) Daniel Drawbaugh (1827-1911) Emile Berliner (1851-1929 ) Amos Emerson Dolbear (1837-1910)

39. Meucci (right) with some friends in 1887

40. When Bell was granted his first “telephonic” patent in 1876 Meucci protested and did his est to bring his invention to the public

41. In 1883 Meucci found some support by a group of businessmen and investors involved with the Globe Company, which tried to exploit his invention. In 1885 began the lawsuit “Bell Telephone Co. versus the Globe Company and Meucci”. In 1887 the Bell company won the Bell/Globe trial.

42. The 18 October 1889 Antonio Meucci died in his home in Clifton.

43. The Bell Telephone Company was created in 1877, with Bell the owner of a third of the 5,000 shares. Stock in the company soared from $50 to over $1,000 a share within three years. Bell was able to create a system! At the end of the 19th Century, the Bell company had several hundreds of thousands of telephones in service. Bell at the opening of the long distance line New York-Chicago

45. 107th CONGRESS1st sessionH. RES. 269 Expressing the sense of the House ofRepresentatives to honor the life and achievements of 19th CenturyItalian-American inventor Antonio Meucci, and his work in theinvention of the telephone. ……………………… 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 invention of the telephone should be acknowledged. September 25, 2001 Voted 11.6. 2002

46. But finally what is an invention ? • First phase: an original idea, an ingenuous intuition and sometime a dose of serendipity generate a new device. • Second phase: transformation of a prototype (or laboratory device) in an efficient and functional apparatus. • Third phase: creation of a market, of a network, of a system based on the invention. (Increasing role of management and finance). Example: light bulb, telephone, telegraph, etc. • For various reasons many inventors could not go be beyond the first phase (lack of interest, lack of money, unfavourable environment, lack of connections, poor managerial attitude, etc.)

47. Thank you very much for your attention!