Historically, if asked who invented the telephone, people will almost without fail say Alexander Graham Bell. However, according to historical documents this is not entirely true. There were several other people who claimed to be the inventor and several lawsuits which arose from those claims. Indeed, in 2002, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a symbolic bill conferring recognition for the invention of the telephone on Antonio Meucci.

Mr. Meucci is not the only man who could have been the inventor of the telephone. Charles Bourseul, Johann Phillip Reis, and Elisha Gray all have caveats in history that involve the telephone.

In 1860 an early version of the telephone was claimed to have been invented by a man named Antonio Meucci. He originally called it a teletrofono.  In 1860 an Italian language newspaper in New York published a description of Meucci’s invention. Meucci coupled an electro-magnetic transmitter with a receiver. The motion of a diaphragm would modulate a signal in the coil by causing movement to an electromagnet. Although this was a dependable and lasting signal, it was a very weak signal.

Mr. Meucci is also credited with the invention of a way to increase signals over long distances using induction loading of the telephone wires. However, Mr. Meucci was not fluent in English and had very little business skills which kept him from furthering his developments for commercial use in the United States.

Later, in Havana, he presented a type of telephone but it is not evident whether this was a version of the electric telephone or another version of the string telephone using wires in place of string. Meucci is known to have been working on over 30 different versions of sound transmission equipment that were inspired by the telegraph system. 

According to the Scientific American Supplement No. 520,, December 18, 1885 there are drawings, notes, and lawyer affidavits to hack up Mr. Meucci’s claims of the inventing the first telephone.

Mr. Meucci’s patent for his invention expired in 1874 and he was not able to pay the continuation fee and Western Union labs claimed to have lost the working models that were Mr. Meucci’s invention. To further muddy the waters for Mr. Alexander Graham Bell there is the fact that he conducted experiments in the same lab where Mr. Meucci’s materials had been stored. Giving ample access to any notes or records left behind. In March of 1876 Mr. Bell was granted a patent and has forever been credited with inventing the telephone.

A French telegraphist published an article in 1854 in a Paris magazine that showed a plan for carrying sound and speech using electricity. His ideas were also in a Frankfurt magazine in September of 1854.

According to some people the first spoken words on a telephone had nothing to do with Watson, but instead were “the horse don’t eat cucumber salad”. This has been attributed to Johann Phillip Reis who in 1860 produced a device that not only carried the sound of musical notes but could also transmit sentences, albeit rather lispy ones.

This lisp in sound was due to the mechanism being a make-break type transmitter it could not transmit complex sounds very well and constants were difficult as well. While in the technical sense it can be called a telephone because it transmitted sound, it was not a telephone in today’s world because it could not convey an actual copy of words.

His invention was tested by the STC (the British Standards Telephone Company) and while it was confirmed that it could transmit and receive speech, albeit faintly, those results were covered up by the STC chairman. This was done because the STC was bidding for a contract with Bell’s American Telegraph and Telephone Company and they didn’t want to mar Bell’s reputation for having invented the telephone.

Around 1874, a Chicago man named Elisha Gray created a tone telegraph. This telegraph could send more than one set of notes at a time simultaneously, a type of multiplexing. These telegraphs could be read by the operator by sound of the code or recorded on paper by a ribbon using Morse code. Western Union utilized his harmonic telegraph and he was granted a patent for it in 1875.

Mr. Gray would next file for a patent for a telephone on the exact day that Alexander Graham Bell did. Both patent applications described a similar water transmitter. This of course raises the question of who copied who?  History already shows that Mr. Bell received the patent for the telephone; leaving the question did his wealth and prestige play a part in obtaining it over Elisha Gray? We may never know the answer to that.

March 7, 1876 Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for the telephone. Three days later his now famous words “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you” were spoken into it and Watson answered. Although this device used Elisha Gray’s water transmitter design he didn’t disclose this during his public demonstrations.

Bell continued working to further improve his device and eventually succeeded in making a commercially usable telephone system. History classes and students everywhere are taught that Bell invented the telephone. It would be more accurate to say that Bell made it to the patent office first and that he expanded upon the knowledge and work of several other inventors. It is safe to say that the first telephone was a collaborative work even if they participants didn’t realize they were collaborating.