WASHINGTON,– The Order Sons of Italy in America (OSIA) has officially recognized telecommunications scholar Dr. Basilio Catania of Turin, Italy, for his research documenting Italian inventor Antonio Meucci’s contributions to the development of the telephone, an invention generally attributed to Alexander Graham Bell.

The award was presented to Catania at an Oct. 12 banquet ceremony in Rome, during an official visit to Italy by the OSIA leadership. OSIA National President Robert Messa presented the certificate of recognition to Catania for his 12 years of telecommunications research that has provided significant evidence of Meucci’s rightful claim to the invention of the telephone, as well as his development of five fundamental techniques of telecommunications.

Based on this, Catania has proved that Meucci’s laboratory notebook was not a forgery, as had been charged by the Bell Company. Previous research also revealed that Meucci demonstrated his invention, which he called the telettrofono, in 1860, 16 years before Bell was granted a patent. In dire financial straits, Meucci was unable to afford the fees to patent his invention.

Catania’s extensive search in about 50 archives and libraries in various countries and his study of their relevant documents also uncovered a mass of unpublished information on the suit brought by the U.S. government against Alexander Graham Bell and the Bell Company, which would have annulled the Bell patent. Meucci died in 1889 before the government could complete its case, and history all but forgot him until Catania began his research.

Catania’s discoveries have been published in a number of scientific magazines and have been also filed with the U.S. Congress in support of a resolution acknowledging Meucci’s merits.

Catania also lectures on Meucci and has created an Internet site on the inventor
(www.esanet.it/chez_basilio).
 

As the oldest and largest national organization for men and women of Italian descent in the United States, OSIA was a major force behind the passing of a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives last June, which recognized Meucci’s contributions to the development of the telephone.

Last year, OSIA launched a grassroots campaign, urging its members and supporters to write to their congressional representatives in support of the resolution introduced by Rep. Vito Fossella (N.Y.). Now that the House resolution has passed, OSIA is helping to have a similar resolution introduced in the U.S. Senate.

OSIA also owns and operates the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum in Staten Island, N.Y., which is one of only two ethnic museums in the U.S. that are designated national historic landmarks. The museum is the home Meucci once lived in. Meucci’s friend, Italian unification leader Giuseppe Garibaldi, also lived here as Meucci’s guest for four years. 

[See
http://www.garibaldimeuccimuseum.org/ 
or call 718.442.1608 for more information on the museum.]

Established in 1905, OSIA has more than 575,000 members and supporters and a network of 700 chapters coast to coast. OSIA works at the community, national and international levels to promote the heritage and culture of an estimated 26 million Italian Americans, the nation’s fifth largest ethnic group, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. To learn more, visit OSIA on the Web at http://www.osia.org.
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Press Contact: Diane Crespy
(202) 547-8115
dcrespy@osia.org
Sons of Italy News Bureau
219 E St., NE · Washington, DC 20002
(202) 547-2900 · (202) 547-0121 – fax
www.osia.org
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