Ancestry Magazine

The creative genius and inspiring life of the father of television.

Driving along the near-deserted highway in southeast Idaho, I have often passed a humble, fading sign which reads: Welcome to Rigby, the birthplace of television. More than once in my life I have wondered about the story behind that sign. How was television born in that small, seemingly insignificant town, and who was the means behind it?

Philo Taylor Farnsworth was born August 19, 1906 near Beaver, Utah to Lewis Edwin and Serena Amanda Bastian Farnsworth. He lived the early years of his life in small farming communities in both Utah and Idaho. With a passion for learning, the young boy eagerly grasped any book that could teach him about the world. His mind was vivid and bright and it soon became apparent that he possessed many rare gifts. Farnsworth’s fascination with electricity developed when he read about it from the Sears, Roebuck catalogue as a small child. In his early teens, when his family moved to a ranch outside Rigby, Idaho, Farnsworth found a stack of popular science and radio magazines in a corner of the attic. As he studied them, his fascination and respect for electricity grew and he dreamed of becoming an inventor. He had a unique understanding of electricity and at a young age was put in charge of the farm generator, which he alone could understand.

Farnsworth’s inventive genius was first applied when he designed a motor, using the power from the farm generator, to operate his mother’s washer. But it was only out of economic necessity that Farnsworth was first recognized as a young up-and-coming inventor. He knew that only the information in precious books held the means to achieve his dreams, but books cost money—money that was hard to come by in those days. Farnsworth found a contest in one of his magazines that offered 25 dollars for the most innovative idea about automobiles. Using the creative energy that seemed to effuse from his very being, he conceived of a way to magnetize keys and ignitions to protect a car from theft. He won first prize in the national competition.

In 1921, at the young age of 14, Farnsworth’s great epiphany that was to change his life and the lives of the citizens of the world occurred as he was guiding his horses along yet another row in the hay field. Having thought about joining the sounds of radio with the pictures of movies, he understood the basic theories behind the new ideas of television. But he knew that it could not be achieved the way the great minds of the world were already unsuccessfully attempting it—mechanically. A greater power was needed and he knew that electricity must be it. He realized that converting a visual image into an electrical image must be done through a vacuum, and suddenly he was struck with the thought that he could build the image line by line and transmit it at the speed of an electron. At that speed the human eye would perceive it as a solid picture. That concept is the basis behind every television set in the world. But although it is grounded on accurate principles, implementing the plan took a lifetime of hard work, litigation, financial backing, and hope. It was many years before television became a part of everyday life.

Farnsworth’s idea was new and innovative and completely incomprehensible to the few people he shared it with. When he started high school in Rigby later that year, he got special permission to tutor after school with the chemistry teacher and school Superintendent, Justin Tolman. Tolman knew he was working with an extraordinary student, and one day he came into the room to find out just how extraordinary his student really was. All of the blackboards were covered with equations, formulas and diagrams of the logistics of television. Farnsworth proceeded to explain his idea and after many sessions, succeeded in convincing his teacher that it would work.

Soon thereafter Farnsworth left high school to help his family raise much-needed funds. But his education did not stop. He received an electrician’s license by correspondence and later signed up for correspondence courses through the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. When his family left Idaho for Provo, Utah, Farnsworth began informal study at Brigham Young University, having not yet completed high school. The professors at BYU encouraged his work and allowed him to use the school’s laboratories, but without funding, it was virtually impossible to produce a television system.

During this time other important events occurred in his life. He enlisted in the Navy with aspirations of becoming an officer, but was honorably released when his father died of pneumonia and his mother requested that he return home to help the family. His father’s death was a loss that affected him the rest of his life. He also met the Gardner family who rented the other side of their duplex in Provo, and became best friends with their son, Cliff, who later was a great help to him in his laboratory work. Farnsworth fell in love with Cliff’s sister, Elma "Pem" Gardner, who eventually became his wife and unwavering support for the rest of his life.

In 1925 he took a job for a California-based businessman, George Everson, who was raising funds for a community chest in Salt Lake City. Everson listened intently to his plans and agreed to privately finance the venture with $6,000. Philo and Pem, both under the age of 20, were married within three days and made their way to Hollywood, California to achieve their goal. With all the dreams and vision of youth on their side, the young couple and two business partners worked together to design and build television. After a full summer’s work, the generator produced too much power and the entire system was destroyed before a test could be successfully run. But on September 7, 1927, with much work and after receiving considerable funding by investors in San Francisco, television was born in a small upper-story lab in San Francisco, California. One solitary, vertical line was transmitted onto a small tube.

Unfortunately politics and patent cases became a real and serious issue in Farnsworth’s claim to recognition. Summarily speaking, an engineer for RCA, Vladimir Zworykin, applied for a patent in 1924 which was pending for over 10 years because his ideas for television were flawed and could not be successfully executed. Although Farnsworth’s invention was legitimate and successful in 1927, trifling technicalities of patent application dates have often granted Zworykin recognition of the invention which rightfully belonged to Farnsworth. In a patent case years later, Justin Tolman, the chemistry teacher from Rigby High School proved the date of Farnsworth’s invention. He produced a 1922 diagram drawn on a slip of paper by a 14-year-old boy for his after-school tutor. The tide was turned and RCA was forced to buy patent royalties, something it had never done before.

For years, Farnsworth worked relentlessly against every obstacle that stood in his way. He became very successful, but patents and legal conflicts were a continual source of concern for his company, Farnsworth Television and Radio. Later, the threat of war and then war itself occurred when he was at risk of losing his patents to public domain, but just before television should have become commercially viable. The government and any private investors would not fund a project that couldn’t directly aid the war effort. For a time he turned to other research that had occupied his mind for many years. His work led to the development of the electron microscope; and for the latter years of his life he focused on harnessing fusion energy for domestic use which ultimately contributed to space flight.

The Farnsworths were parents to four sons, one of which died as a small child, and were a happily married couple devoted to each other, their family, and to making Philo’s inventions successful. They spent many years in Philadelphia and Fort Wayne where their business was ultimately established, and for several years had a home and acreage in Maine that was among the Farnsworth’s favorite places.

Farnsworth continued to be the mastermind behind his company, although he alienated himself from television work for a time. He was deeply respected by his peers and all who knew and loved him. Over the years, Farnsworth’s health began to decline. He had most of his stomach removed in an emergency surgery, lost weight, and could no longer keep food down; while his mind was active, his body was shutting down and he needed rest that he could not get. He died on 11 March 1971 at the age of 64 with over 300 patents registered at the U.S. Patent Office.

In many ways the world has honored Farnsworth with the respect and recognition that he deserves. At the height of his television development, the media followed his every move. Recently, the state of Utah had a statue of him placed in Statuary hall in the U.S. Capitol building, one of only two representing the state. In 1983, the U.S. Postal Service released a special edition stamp to commemorate Farnsworth’s life and ingenuity. And in 1984 he was inducted into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame.

But in other ways, Farnsworth’s achievements have gone largely unnoticed. He is said to be "one of the greatest, yet least publicized scientists of our generation." In an age where technology seems to grow from a team of engineers in a corporate plant, we find it difficult to believe that one great mind full of bright ideas could conceive of such an idea of television in a hay field at the young age of fourteen.

Philo Farnsworth’s name, after a lifetime of hard work but often unrecognized success, deserves to be forever linked with the title, father of television. For, indeed, that is who he is.

Jennifer Browning, Associate Editor of Ancestry Magazine, grew up in a small town just south of Rigby, Idaho.