[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 79 (Friday, June 14, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1065]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  HONORING THE LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF 19TH CENTURY ITALIAN-AMERICAN 
                        INVENTOR ANTONIO MEUCCI

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                           HON. RUSH D. HOLT

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 11, 2002

  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of legislation considered by 
the House this week which calls attention to an under recognized 
historical figure, Antonio Meucci, and his work on an invention that we 
today know as the telephone. Mr. Meucci is a testament to the hard work 
and innovation that made America great.
  Most Americans know the story of Alexander Graham Bell, the man given 
sole credit for the invention of the telephone. This resolution makes 
clear, though, that another man made enormous strides in laying the 
groundwork for the invention, an Italian immigrant by the name of 
Antonio Meucci.
  Antonio Meucci was born near Florence, Italy, in 1808. He studied 
mechanical engineering at Florence's Academy of Fine Arts and then 
worked in the Teatro della Pergola and various other theaters as a 
stage technician until 1835, when he accepted a job as a scenic 
designer and stage technician in Havana, Cuba.
  Fascinated by research, Meucci read every scientific tract he could 
get his hands on, and spent all his spare time in Havana on research, 
inventing a new method of galvanizing metals that he applied to 
military equipment for the Cuban government. At the same time, he 
continued his work in the theater and pursued his experiments.
  As a result of his research, Meucci had developed a method of using 
electric shocks to treat various illnesses. One day, while preparing to 
administer such a treatment, Meucci heard his friend's voice over the 
piece of copper wire running between them. He realized he had stumbled 
onto something much more important than any other discovery he had ever 
made, and he spent the next ten years bringing the principle to a 
practical stage. The following decade was to be spent perfecting the 
original device.
  Antonio Meucci called his work on this project, ``teletrofono.'' 
Meucci was unable to commercialize his invention because he did not 
speak enough English to navigate the American business community, and, 
having spent most of his life savings on his work, he was unable to 
raise sufficient funds to pay his way through the patent process. 
Instead, he had to settle for a caveat, a one-year renewable notice of 
an impending patent, which Meucci first filed in 1871.
  While a brilliant inventor, Meucci was victim of a series of 
financial and personal misfortunes. A Western Union affiliate 
laboratory--where Meucci was keeping his models to demonstrate his 
work--reportedly lost his working models, and as Meucci--was subsiding 
off public assistance, he could not afford the $10 necessary to renew 
the caveat in 1874. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, who conducted 
experiments in the same laboratory where Meucci's materials had been 
stored, was granted a patent, and thereafter credited with inventing 
the telephone. Nine months later, the government moved to annul Bell's 
patent on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation, which the Supreme 
Court remanded for trial.
  Meucci died in 1889, the Bell patent expired in 1893 and the case was 
discounted as moot without ever uncovering the true inventor of the 
telephone. If Meucci were able to renew his caveat, a patent to Bell 
could have never been issued.
  The world of science and invention is a highly competitive one, where 
inventors compete to make and market their discoveries. It is only 
right that we call attention to the work of one brilliant inventor who 
history has not given his proper due, and who made enormous 
contributions toward the invention of this device. I urge support for 
the bill.

                          ____________________