This Year's Theme:

Antonio Meucci
The TRUE Inventor of the Telephone
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Antonio Meucci (April 13, 1808 - October 18, 1889) was an Italian inventor. He developed a form of voice communication apparatus in 1857 and has long had champions arguing that he should be credited with the invention of the telephone.

Meucci set up a voice communication link in his Staten Island home that connected the basement with the second floor.  He was unable to raise sufficient funds to pay his way through the patent application.

He filed a patent caveat in 1871, which expired in 1874.  In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell patented the electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound by ondulatory electric current.

There is also held a belief that the reason Bell got the idea was due to the fact that Meucci's wife sold out Meucci's documents and projects for a mere $6 while he was suffering a fever and unable to leave bed.

The United States House of Representatives recognized that legally, "If Meucci had been able to pay the $10 fee to maintain the caveat after 1874, no patent could have been issued to Bell"; then Meucci would have been considered the inventor of the telephone.

On January 13th 1887 the Government of the United States moved to annul the patent issued to Bell on the grounds of fraud and misrepresentation.  The prosecuting attorney was the Hon. George M. Stearns under the direction of the Solicitor General George A. Jenks.

On July 19th 1887, the judge William J. Wallace (Circuit Court, S. D.
New York.) concluded: "The experiments and invention of one Antonio Meucci, relating to the transmission of speech by an electrical apparatus, for which invention a caveat was filed in the United States patent-office, December 28, 1871, renewed in December, 1882, and again in December, 1883, do not contain any such elements of an electric speaking telephone as would give the same priority over or interfere with the said Bell patent."
Meucci died before the Court reached a verdict for his own case, which was closed at the death of the prosecutor.

The United States House of Representatives in its resolutions HRES 269 IH dated October 17th 2001 and HRES 269 EH dated June 11th 2002 resolved that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci should be recognized, and his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged.

Past Years Celebrations

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2007 Giuseppe Garibaldi, Eroe dei due mondi, Hero of Two Worlds
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2006 The Leonardo Da Vinci Legacy
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2005 Focus on Giuseppe Mazzini
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2004 Amerigo Vespucci
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2003 Focus on Italian Opera
Celebrating The Centennial Enrico Caruso's Debut in America
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2002 Constantino Brumidi: Artist of the United States Capitol
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2001 Giuseppe Verdi: A Tribute to Italy's Patriotic Composer
2000 Italy in the Year 2000: Italian Heritage and Cultural Roots at the Threshold of the New Millennium
1999 The Italians of New York: Five Centuries of Struggle and Achievement
1998 New York City at 100: Italian Americans Commemorate the Immigrant Experience (Patria e famiglia)
1997 The Voyages of Giovanni Caboto: 500th Anniversary
1996 Italy and its Regions (L'Italia delle Regioni)
1995 Guglielmo Marconi: Centennial of the Radio
1994 Italian Americans in Law: From Beccaria to Scalia
1993 The Legacy of Italy's Artistic and Cultural Contributions to the World
1992 Cristoforo Colombo 500th Anniversary: The Legacy Lives on
1991 Italian Americans: The Legacy of Cristoforo Colombo
1990 William Paca: Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Jurist, 3 times Governor of the State of Maryland
1989 Italians Reaching Out: Antonio Meucci, Inventor of the Telephone, and Mother Cabrini, Missionary of the Immigrants
1988 Lorenzo Da Ponte/Academia
1987 Year of the U.S. Constitution: Mazzei and the Italian Contribution
1986 Year of Lady Liberty
1985 Building America
1984 Year of the Etruscans
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1983 Italian Culture Week
1982 Italian Culture Week
1981 Italian Festival of the Arts
1980 Italian Culture Week
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1979 Italian Culture Week
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1978 Italian Week, Board of Education of New York
1977 Italian Culture Week
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1976 Italian Culture Week
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