WHO INVENTED THE TELEPHONE

Evening Star, Issue 18717, 20 August 1924, Page 12

WHO INVENTED THE TELEPHONE

MEMORIAL TO AN ITALIAN CLAIMANT. A marble tablet with a medallion portrait ha-s been placed on tho public Post and Telegraph Office to the memory of a Florentine citizen, Antonio Meucci, tho inventor of the telephone—poor and defrauded of his rights.” j The story of Antonio Meucci, like thatj ■of many inventors, is curious and pathetic i He was bom in Florence, of poor parents, I in 1808, and on growing up he earned his living for some time as a theatrical scene-, shifter. His political opinions brought' , him into conflict with the authorities, and , he and his wife emigrated to the United ' States. Here ho set up successfully a : piano factory and a candle factory, with- ■ out attaining any particular success with ( either. Mcucci’s homo, on Staten Island, ■ a centre for Italian political rein- 1 gees, and when Garibaldi fled to Ame- I ,rica after '49 he was warmly welcomed I by the Meuccis, with whom he lived for j a year or two, working in tho candle fac- | Uory. In the intervals of candlo-making i Garibaldi and his host would make ex- i penmen Is wit h a wonderful new invention 1 for transmitting sounds to a distance i which Meucci had discovered. Garibaldi, on the first floor of the little house, and | Meucci. in the cellar, would talk together I for hours through (his original, primitive ! telephone, of which the merit undoubtedly belongs to the Italian exile, who'was the first to make a practical application of ■ principles which others only considered as j a vague possibility. j Meucci perfected his apparatus to the j best of his ability, and some years later | he presented it for examination to the | President of the New York District Tele- | graph Company. Getting no encourage- | ment, in 1871 ho went to the Patent Of- . fleo in Washington, and look out-a patent j for his invention. Through lack of'know-j ledge, and still more, through lack of j means, ho omitted to protect himself completoly by taking out supplementary pa- | tents "for the. different component, part* of j his appliance. Mencci’s designs became known, it is said, through the indiscretion of someone in the Pa,tout- Office, and five years later the ' honor of having invented the telephone was publicly awarded to the Scotch engineer, Graham Bell, who took out. a patent in 1876 for a telephonic apparatus only differing slightly in certain details from that of MeucciThe remainder of Meucci's life was passed 1 in vain effort* to get his prior claims, vpcocmised. Ho brought, law suits, and friends took up bis case; but, hampered ; by extreme poverty, he was never able j to fight successfully, and be died, a bitterly disappointed _man, in 1889.