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Farnsworth, Philo T. ...there's nothing on it worthwhile, and we're not going to watch it in this household.... I don't want it in your intellectual diet. —Farnsworth, talking to his son about television
Philo T. Farnsworth (1906–1971) was the first person to project a television image. Farnsworth was born in Beaver County, Utah, on August 19, 1906. He became inspired by the idea, which was new at that time, of combining radio and movie technology to create “pictures that could fly.” These were later known as television images. In 1926 Farnsworth moved to San Francisco and set up a laboratory. In 1927 he transmitted the first television image with his invention, the “image dissector.” Farnsworth was awarded more than 150 U.S. patents in his lifetime. Some of his other inventions included an air traffic control system, a baby incubator, a tool for examining the stomach called a
gastroscope, and the first electronic microscope. He also studied nuclear fusion. He died on March 11, 1971, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Philo Farnsworth, like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison, was a selftaught inventor. Activities of everyday life, like using a telephone, excited his imagination. When he watched and listened to his parents talking on the telephone his young mind raced. How did that device work? And if a voice could be sent across miles, could a movie travel the same way? When he found the answer to this question, he became one of the greatest scientists of the century. Philo Taylor Farnsworth was born on August 19, 1906 in Beaver County, Utah. Philo was one of the middle children in a large Mormon family. He was named for his grandfather, who had been one of the people sent by Brigham Young, the leader of the Mormon Church, to settle Beaver County. As he got older, Philo preferred to be called Phil. Philo’s life started out simply, far from the television and electronics for which he would become known. When he was born, his family lived in the small log cabin that his grandfather had built. Farnsworth’s father, Lewis, and his mother, Serena, were farmers. The family moved frequently and as a result the children did not attend school regularly. When Philo was a young boy, his family moved from Utah to Rigby, Idaho, where they became sharecroppers on a relative’s farm. In Utah the Farnsworth family had never lived in a home with electricity. For young Philo, electricity was the most exciting thing about their Idaho farm. Philo helped his family with their farm work, but it was apparent early on that his talents lay elsewhere. The electric generator on the farm mystified the adults, but young Philo found it fascinating. His father could see that Philo was a born inventor. Lewis Farnsworth knew Philo would not make farming his life’s work. Early Promise It was in Idaho that Farnsworth’s fascination with electronics began. During a long distance telephone call with a relative back in Utah, Philo was awed by
the phone’s ability to connect two people so far apart. That phone call sparked a lifelong interest in mechanics and technology. In the attic of his new home in Idaho, Farnsworth found stacks of technology magazines, and began to pore over them. He particularly liked to read the magazine Popular Science. Using what he had learned from the magazines, Farnsworth built an electric motor when he was only twelve years old. He tried out his motor on his family’s household appliances. He installed an electric motor on his mother’s hand-cranked washing machine. He even replaced the foot treadle on her sewing machine with one of his motors. The next year when he was thirteen, Philo began tinkering with the family’s automobile. He designed a type of automobile ignition switch that would prevent car theft. He submitted his invention to a contest sponsored by Science and Invention magazine. His anti-theft switch won a prize of $25, equivalent to more than $300 in 2007. Farnsworth got something else from his magazines. He got a dream. In his magazines, Farnsworth read about an idea for “pictures that could fly,” a combination of the radio and movies. No one had figured out how to make this dream a reality yet, but Farnsworth was fascinated by it, and decided to set his mind to it. Inspiration in the Field One day in 1921 fourteen-year-old Philo Farnsworth was helping his family on the farm when he had an idea.
He had been leading a horse-drawn plow up and down the field when he stopped to inspect his work. He noticed that his plow had divided the field into parallel rows. He went on to imagine that almost anything could be divided into similar parallel rows. He thought that if he could scan an image with a beam of electrons inside a cathode ray tube row by row, as if reading the lines of a book, he could transmit the image to a receiver. Philo knew instantly that he had unlocked the secret to television, as the “pictures that fly” were called.
Philo didn’t know who to talk to in Rigby, Idaho, about this idea. He knew his father would never understand it. He wondered if his high school chemistry teacher, Justin Tolman, would be interested, and so he went to see him. Philo drew a picture of what he called an “image dissector” on the board, while Mr. Tolman made notes. Neither of them knew at the time that the drawing would be the basis for an astonishing invention that would change the way the world communicated. Mr. Tolman was intrigued by what they discussed. He filed Philo’s drawing and some notes about his ideas away in his desk. In years to come, Farnsworth would credit Mr. Tolman as a major source of guidance and inspiration. And Mr. Tolman’s notes would later prove invaluable. Hard Times and Good Luck The year 1922, though, brought hard times. The Farnsworth family lost their farm and had to move back to Utah. Philo’s passion for science still burned. He enrolled at Brigham Young University in 1923, but tragedy soon cut his classroom studies short. Lewis Farnsworth had died and Philo’s family needed his help. He moved back home to support his family. He took a variety of odd jobs, which included a short stint in the navy, a job cleaning the streets of Salt Lake City, and a job selling electronics door to door. He also worked for a fundraising company, called the Community Chest, the forerunner of today’s United Way. While working for the Community Chest, Farnsworth had the good luck to meet George Everson and Leslie Gorrell. They were fundraisers from California who enjoyed listening to Farnsworth talk about his dream of television. In fact, they were so impressed with his ideas that they thought he might be just the man to figure out the mystery of television. Everson and Gorrell decided to take a chance on him and became his investors, offering him the money needed to fund his research. They asked Farnsworth to move to California, where the investors could support his work and keep an eye on him too. “My Wife and I Started Television” Farnsworth didn’t want to leave for California without Elma G. “Pem” Gardner, whom he had met during his two years at Brigham Young University. He asked her to marry him and she agreed. They quickly arranged for a ceremony, and the next day they left for California. Their marriage lasted for more than forty-five years and produced four children.
The couple settled in San Francisco. With the money from his investors Farnsworth set up a lab in a loft on Green Street. There, he was finally able to start serious work on developing his idea into a working television. Pem helped out by working as a technician and a bookkeeper. Pem’s brother, Cliff Gardner, was also fiercely interested in television and would often help Philo with his experiments. The three had to learn how to blow glass to make vacuum tubes and how to solder and even weld. Remembering their early days in San Francisco, Farnsworth later said, “My wife and I started television.” In 1927 the Farnsworths’ hard work paid off. On September 7 the first television image from Farnsworth’s system was created. Farnsworth’s device, the “image dissector,” transmitted an image to a glass receiver tube, made up of a piece of glass painted black with a line scratched through it. The image even moved when the piece of glass was moved. Everyone involved was excited, though Farnsworth seemed to take it in stride, saying simply, “There you are! Electronic television.” Later that night, he wrote in his journal: “The received line picture was evident this time, lines of various widths could be transmitted, and any movement at right angles to the line was easily recognized.” When this first image was transmitted, Farnsworth had successfully invented the first vacuum tube television display. At the age of twenty-one and without a college degree, Farnsworth had solved the mystery of television. Cathode ray tube configurations just like Farnsworth’s were used in all television sets until the late twentieth century when TVs began to be made with liquid crystal displays. Who Had the Idea First? Farnsworth wasn’t the only one working on “images that could fly.” Someone else—Russian immigrant Dr. Vladimir Zworykin—had also been working on inventing television. Zworykin was an engineer working for the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), a large media company. By the early 1930s, Zworykin had developed a tube similar to Farnsworth’s “image dissector,” which he called an “iconoscope.” Zworykin and David Sarnoff, the president of RCA, knew that the work Farnsworth had done was similar to theirs and important in the development of television. They visited Farnsworth’s lab in San Francisco and were impressed by the progress that he had made. Sarnoff offered Farnsworth
$100,000 for the work that he had done, but Farnsworth refused. He knew his work was worth far more. To protect his invention, Philo Farnsworth filed a claim for a patent with the U.S. government in 1927. He thought the patent would give him control over his invention and force anyone else who wanted to produce televisions to pay him. But a few years later, RCA and Zworykin also filed for a patent, claiming that they had come up with the idea for television first. The argument over who was first went on for several years, eventually escalating to become a legal battle. The courts were asked to decide. One of the witnesses called to testify was Justin Tolman, Philo Farnsworth’s high school chemistry teacher from Rigby, Idaho. Tolman told the courts that Philo had drawn a sketch of an “image dissector” back in 1921. He showed the court his notes from their discussion, and produced his sketch of Farnsworth’s drawing. The teacher’s testimony convinced the courts that Philo Farnsworth had the idea for a television tube first. Farnsworth was awarded the patent. Eclipsed by RCA Farnsworth had won the patent fight and RCA was forced to pay him for the use of the technology. However, RCA was a large, well-funded company and it went on to dominate the market for televisions. Eventually it became too difficult for Farnsworth’s company to compete against RCA in the television market. Farnsworth decided to focus his inventiveness elsewhere. Fame and fortune never visited Farnsworth. His groundbreaking work was eclipsed by RCA’s success in developing and selling televisions. He had the patent, but how would television affect his life? Television’s Legacy: A Mixed Bag Farnsworth took pride in his work on the television. He especially enjoyed watching historic events on television, such as Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon in 1969. He felt that television could be overused though. According to his son Kent,Farnsworth was frustrated that television had become such an overriding pastime for so many Americans. Farnsworth regarded watching television as a great waste of time. He discouraged his children from watching television, telling them “there’s nothing on it worthwhile, and
we’re not going to watch it in this household. I don’t want it in your intellectual diet.” Farnsworth’s Remarkable Influence Farnsworth redirected his creative and scientific efforts in the 1950s and 1960s to study nuclear fusion. In 1965 he patented a device that produced a thirty-second fusion reaction. In all, Philo Farnsworth would hold over 150 patents in the United States alone. His original inventions included an air traffic control system, a baby incubator, a tool for examining the stomach called a gastroscope, and the first electronic microscope. Philo Farnsworth died in Salt Lake City, Utah, on March 11, 1971. Though he never achieved the household-name recognition of other groundbreaking scientists, Farnsworth’s many contributions were considered invaluable to his field, and set the stage for others’ innovations in the years after his death. Without his work, you could not watch your favorite television show, play a video game, or browse the Internet on a computer. By the late twentieth century Farnsworth’s achievements were beginning to receive some recognition. This was due in part to his wife Pem’s tireless work promoting Farnsworth’s legacy after his death in 1971. In 1990 a statue of Farnsworth was installed in the U.S. Capitol Building’s statuary hall, with the inscription, “Father of Television.” And in 1999 Timemagazine named Farnsworth one of the twentieth century’s greatest scientists. He was the only scientist on the list who had never finished college, a testament to his natural genius. Farnsworth’s boyhood dream to make “pictures that could fly” became a reality. His invention remains a groundbreaking form of communication, which is all the more remarkable because it was accomplished by a self-taught teenager from Utah.
Farnsworth Archives
Philo T. Farnsworth in his workshop looking at vacuum tubes. Farnsworth is credited with having invented television.
Farnsworth Archives
Philo T. Farnsworth’s drawing of the “image dissector.”
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Philo T. Farnsworth’s patent drawing for television.
Farnsworth Archives
Philo T. Farnsworth (right) with his teacher Justin Tolman. Tolman encouraged Farnsworth when he was in high school and was instrumental in helping him obtain a patent for television.
The Library of Congress
An early television image of a woman’s face.
Farnsworth Archives
An early television studio in Philadelphia. Generating programming became a problem. Every show was live.
Farnsworth Archives
The mobile Television Demonstration truck pictured above was used by Philo T. Farnsworth’s company to promote television.
The Library of Congress
This statue of Philo T. Farnsworth is in the U.S. Capitol Building’s statuary hall.
The Lincoln Library Press
Milestones in the Life of Philo T. Farnsworth
Further Study Books McPherson, Stephanie Sammartino. TV’s Forgotten Hero: The Story of Philo Farnsworth (Trailblazer Biographies). Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Books, 1996. Grades 4–6. Schwartz, Evan I. The Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television. New York: Harper, 2003. Stashower, Daniel. The Boy Genius and the Mogul: The Untold Story of Television. New York: Broadway Books, 2002. Web Sites Farnsworth Archives. “Who Was He?” http://philotfarnsworth.com/whoIsHe.html (accessed December 2007). Lemelson MIT Program. “Philo T. Farnsworth, Inventor of the Week.” http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/farnsworth.html (accessed December 2007). Time Online. “Philo T. Farnsworth: Time 100.” www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/ farnsworth.html (accessed December 2007).
Source: Lincoln Library of Shapers of Society Online Lexile® measure: 980L Reading level: 7.8 Word count: 2350 Cite this article as: "Farnsworth, Philo T." FactCite: Lincoln Library of Shapers of Society Online. Lincoln Lib. P, 2011. Web. 5 Dec. 2014.