Antonio Meucci

Antonio Meucci ( born April 13, 1808 Florence San Frediano neighborhood, † October 18, 1889 in New York ) was an Italian inventor. About the year of death, there is disagreement. The majority of the sources are at 1889, some 1896.

Antonio Meucci attended the Academy of Fine Arts and then studied chemistry and mechanics. At the same time he did his military service as a city guard. To 1833, he was chief mechanic at the Teatro della Pergola, where he installed one that remains largely intact Acoustic Pipe telephone. Because of his sympathy with the revolutionaries for the Liberation of Italy he was under surveillance, landed some months in prison and left Italy in 1835 to Cuba, where they had made him a lucrative offer. Shortly before his departure, he married Esther mochi.

In Havana he was again senior theater technician. Besides, he devoted himself to his inventions, including a chemical method for processing waste waters. At the same time, he founded a Galvanisierungsfabrik who worked mainly for the military. He earned a fortune, which allowed him to give a financial agent of the revolution in Italy. After his contract expired in 1850, he moved to New York.

In Clifton / New York, he settled down and went there by his ideas. This led in 1851 to the founding of the first Stearinkerzenfabrik, establishing the Clifton Brewery for lager in 1856, the world's first paraffin candle factory in 1860. Meanwhile, the rheumatic sufferings of his wife was so great that she could not leave the room. For this reason, Meucci developed in 1854 the first telephone connection.

1860, the inventor had demonstrated his telephone first. However, transactions with windy speculators led to the loss of its total assets and its economic independence. In 1866 Meucci burned in the explosion of a steam boiler so much that he could not work three months. He was dismissed and his wife was forced to his work models, including the phone to sell. But Meucci did not give up and improved his phone. In 1871 he wanted to sign it for patent. Since he could not afford the sum of the final application, the provisional patent ran out in 1873. Also, a contact with the Western Union Telegraph Company, which he handed over his equipment and documents to view, did nothing. When he returned in 1874 these things called, he was told they had been lost.

Reported in 1876 Alexander Graham Bell, at that time employed by Western Union for a patent for his telephone. Despite decades of disputes failed Antonio Meucci, to obtain the patent or at least financial compensation from Bell. He died as an impoverished man.

On 11 June 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives paid tribute to his work in the invention and launch of the phone in a resolution Antonio Meucci.