Antonio Meucci - Historical Debate

Historical Debate

The question of whether Bell was the true inventor of the telephone is perhaps the single most litigated fact in U.S. history, and the Bell patents were defended in some 600 cases. Meucci was a defendant in American Bell Telephone Co. v. Globe Telephone Co. and others (the court’s findings, reported in 31 Fed. Rep. 729).

N. Herbert in his History of the Telephone said:

To bait the Bell Company became almost a national sport. Any sort of claimant, with any sort of wild tale of prior invention, could find a speculator to support him. On they came, a motley array, 'some in rags, some on nags, and some in velvet gowns.' One of them claimed to have done wonders with an iron hoop and a file in 1867; a second had a marvelous table with glass legs; a third swore that he had made a telephone in 1860, but did not know what it was until he saw Bell's patent; and a fourth told a vivid story of having heard a bullfrog croak via a telegraph wire which was strung into a certain cellar in Racine, in 1851.

However, an Italian researcher in telecommunications Professor Basilio Catania provided evidence that Bell was accused of fraud and misrepresentation in 1887. Catania recounted that Meucci gave his prototypes to Edward B. Grant, Vice President of the American District Telegraph Co. of New York. Grant reportedly said that the prototypes were lost.

William J. Wallace’s ruling was regarded by historian Giovanni Schiavo as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in the history of the U.S., and one of the most offensive, too.