Philo Farnsworth is not a name that most people recognize, but Philo is responsible for inventing one of the most popular inventions of all time, Television.
I am first writing a summery of Philo’s life, which I call
“A Farm Boy’s Journey to Inventing Television,”
and then a more detailed version.
At the end of the detailed article, I have a link to a you tube video of the only time that Philo appeared on television, the 1956 “I’ve Got A Secret Show.”
And then I have links to a PBS documentry Presented in 2 parts called:
“Big Dreams, Small Screen.”
Philo Farnsworth was born in 1906 to a Latter Day Saints couple, in a small log cabin in Utah. He developed an interest in electronics after discovering a large cache of technology magazines in the attic of a new home that his family had recently moved into when he was twelve years old.
He educated himself by reading the magazines and doing scientific experiments on his own. He first conceived of the principles of how electronc television would work at the age of fourteen, as he was plowing the fields on his family’s farm.
He saw the straight rows, back and forth in the fields, and had a vision of an electron beam scanning an image, line by line, and then reproducing that image on a picture tube, line by line. That, as it turned out, is basically how electronic Television works.
Soon after he conceived of that idea, he explained his concept to his science treacher by drawing it on a blackboard. The science teacher encouraged him and made a copy of Philo’s drawing and kept it.
Philo later attended Brigham Young University, and earned a Radio-Trican certification in 1925.
While attending college, Philo met Elma “Pem” Gardner, whom he eventually married.
Philo began searching for a way to fund his research into television, and soon became aquanted with Leslie Gorrell and George Everson, a pair of San Francisco philanthropists, who agreed to fund his early research into Television with $6000, and Philo set up a laboratory in Los Angeles to carry out his experiments.
Pem and Philo moved to San Francisco on May 27, 1926, and Philo showed his models and drawings to a patent attorney who was nationally recognized as an authority in electrophysics. Everson and Gorrell, his backers, agreed that Philo should apply for patients for his designs, a decision that proved crucial in later disputes with RCA
By 1928, Philo had developed his television system sufficiently to hold a demonstration for the press. His backers had demanded to know when they would see dollars from the invention; so the first image shown was, appropriately, a dollar sign.
In 1930, RCA recruited Vladimir Zworykin—who had tried, unsuccessfully, to develop his own all-electronic television system at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh since 1923—to lead its television development department.
In 1931, David Sarnoff of RCA offered to buy Farnsworth’s patents for US$100,000, with the stipulation that he become an employee of RCA, but Farnsworth refused. In June of that year, Farnsworth joined the Philco company and moved to Philadelphia along with his wife and two children. RCA later filed an interference suit against Farnsworth, claiming Zworykin’s 1923 patent had priority over Farnsworth’s design, despite the fact it could present no evidence that Zworykin had actually produced a functioning transmitter tube before 1931.
Farnsworth had lost two interference claims to Zworykin in 1928, but this time he prevailed and the U.S. Patent Office rendered a decision in 1934 awarding priority of the invention of the image dissector (TV Camera ) to Farnsworth.
The main evidence presented for the U.S. Patent Office decision, was the notes that Pem and Philo had kept on every step of their expereiments they had made in the 1920, and the drawings made by Philo’s science teacher from Philo’s blackboard drawings when Philo was fourteen.
RCA lost a subsequent appeal, but litigation over a variety of issues continued for several years with Sarnoff finally agreeing to pay Farnsworth royalties.
Philo returned to his laboratory in 1936, and his company was regularily transmitting programs on an experimental basis.
In 1936 Philo attracted the attention of Collier’s Weekly, which described his work in glowing terms. “One of those amazing facts of modern life that just don’t seem possible – namely, electrically scanned television that seems destined to reach your home next year, was largely given to the world by a nineteen-year-old boy from Utah … Today, barely thirty years old he is setting the specialized world of science on its ears.”
In 1938, Farnsworth established the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with E. A. Nicholas as president and himself as director of research. In September 1939, after a more than decade-long legal battle, RCA finally conceded to a multi-year licensing agreement concerning Farnsworth’s 1927 patent for television totaling $1 million. RCA was then free, after showcasing electronic television at New York World’s Fair on April 20, 1939, to sell electronic television to the public.
Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation was purchased by International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) in 1951. During his time at ITT, Farnsworth worked in a basement laboratory known as “the cave” on Pontiac Street in Fort Wayne. From there he introduced a number of breakthrough concepts, including a defense early warning signal, submarine detection devices, radar calibration equipment and an infrared telescope.
In the spring of 1967, Philo and his family moved back to Utah where Brigham Young University, presented him with an honorary doctorate.
In January 1971, Philo became seriously ill with Pneumonia, and died on March 11, 1971
At the time he died, Philo held 300 U.S. and foreign patents. His inventions contributed to the development of radar, infra-red night vision devices, the electron microscope, the baby incubator, the gastroscope, and the astronomical telescope.
In a 1996 videotaped interview by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Elma Farnsworth recounts Philo’s change of heart about the value of television, after seeing how it showed man walking on the moon, in real time, to millions of viewers:
Interviewer: The image dissector was used to send shots back from the moon to earth.
Elma Farnsworth: Right.
Interviewer: What did Phil think of that?
Elma Farnsworth: We were watching it, and, when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, Phil turned to me and said, “Pem, this has made it all worthwhile.” Before then, he wasn’t too sure.
Farnsworth’s wife Elma Gardner “Pem” Farnsworth fought for decades after his death to assure his place in history. Farnsworth always gave her equal credit for creating television, saying, “my wife and I started this TV.” She died on April 27, 2006, at age 98. The inventor and wife were survived by two sons, Russell (then living in New York City), and Kent (then living in Fort Wayne, Indiana).
In 1999, Time magazine included Farnsworth in the “Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century“.
Below is the More detailed Version of:
A Farm Boy”s Journey To Inventing Television
Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor and television pioneer. He made many crucial contributions to the early development of all-electronic television.
He is best known for his 1927 invention of the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (video camera tube), the image dissector, as well as the first fully functional and complete all-electronic television system. Farnsworth developed a television system complete with receiver and camera—which he produced commercially through the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation from 1938 to 1951, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Early life
Farnsworth was born August 19, 1906, the eldest of five children of Lewis Edwin Farnsworth and Serena Amanda Bastian, a Latter-day Saint couple living in a small log cabin built by Lewis’s father near Beaver, Utah.
In 1918, the family moved to a relative’s 240-acre (1.0 km2) ranch near Rigby, Idaho, where his father supplemented his farming income by hauling freight with his horse-drawn wagon. Philo was excited to find that his new home was wired for electricity, with a Delco generator providing power for lighting and farm machinery. He was a quick student in mechanical and electrical technology, repairing the troublesome generator. He found a burned-out electric motor among some items discarded by the previous tenants and rewound the armature; he converted his mother’s hand-powered washing machine into an electric-powered one.
He developed an early interest in electronics after his first telephone conversation with a distant relative, and he discovered a large cache of technology magazines in the attic of their new home. He won $25 in a pulp-magazine contest for inventing a magnetized car lock. Farnsworth was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Farnsworth excelled in chemistry and physics at Rigby High School. He asked science teacher Justin Tolman for advice about an electronic television system that he was contemplating; he provided the teacher with sketches and diagrams covering several blackboards to show how it might be accomplished electronically, and Tolman encouraged him to develop his ideas. One of the drawings that he did on a blackboard for his chemistry teacher was recalled and reproduced for a patent interference case between Farnsworth and RCA.
In 1923, the family moved to Provo, Utah, and Farnsworth attended Brigham Young High School that fall. His father died of pneumonia in January 1924 at age 58, and Farnsworth assumed responsibility for sustaining the family while finishing high school.
After graduating BYHS in June 1924, he applied to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where he earned the nation’s second-highest score on academy recruiting tests.
However, he was already thinking ahead to his television projects; he learned that the government would own his patents if he stayed in the military, so he obtained an honorable discharge within months of joining under a provision in which the eldest child in a fatherless family could be excused from military service to provide for his family.
He returned to Provo and enrolled at Brigham Young University, but he was not allowed by the faculty to attend their advanced science classes based upon policy considerations. He attended anyway and made use of the university’s research labs, and he earned a Junior Radio-Trician certification from the National Radio Institute, with a full certification in 1925.
While attending college, he met Provo High School student Elma “Pem” Gardner, (February 25, 1908 – April 27, 2006), whom he eventually married.
Farnsworth became acquainted with Leslie Gorrell and George Everson, a pair of San Francisco philanthropists who were then conducting a Salt Lake City Community Chest fund-raising campaign. They agreed to fund his early television research with an initial $6,000 in backing, and set up a laboratory in Los Angeles for Farnsworth to carry out his experiments.
Farnsworth married Pem on May 27, 1926, and the two traveled to Berkeley, California, in a Pullman coach. They moved across the bay to San Francisco where Farnsworth set up his new lab at 202 Green Street. It was at this time that he received his first television patent.
Career
A few months after arriving in California, Farnsworth was prepared to show his models and drawings to a patent attorney who was nationally recognized as an authority on electrophysics.
Everson and Gorrell agreed that Farnsworth should apply for patents for his designs, a decision that proved crucial in later disputes with RCA.
Most television systems in use at the time used image scanning devices (“rasterizers“) employing rotating “Nipkow disks” comprising a spinning disk with holes arranged in spiral patterns such that they swept across an image in a succession of short arcs while focusing the light they captured on photosensitive elements, thus producing a varying electrical signal corresponding to the variations in light intensity. Farnsworth recognized the limitations of the mechanical systems, and that an all-electronic scanning system could produce a superior image for transmission to a receiving device.
On September 7, 1927, Farnsworth’s image dissector camera tube transmitted its first image, a simple straight line, to a receiver in another room of his laboratory at 202 Green Street in San Francisco. Pem Farnsworth recalled in 1985 that her husband broke the stunned silence of his lab assistants by saying, “There you are – electronic television!” The source of the image was a glass slide, backlit by an arc lamp. An extremely bright source was required because of the low light sensitivity of the design.
By 1928, Farnsworth had developed the system sufficiently to hold a demonstration for the press. His backers had demanded to know when they would see dollars from the invention; so the first image shown was, appropriately, a dollar sign.
In 1929, the design was further improved by elimination of a motor-generator; so the television system now had no mechanical parts. That year Farnsworth transmitted the first live human images using his television system, including a three and a half-inch image of his wife Pem.
Many inventors had built electromechanical television systems before Farnsworth’s seminal contribution, but Farnsworth designed and built the world’s first working all-electronic television system, employing electronic scanning in both the pickup and display devices. He first demonstrated his system to the press on September 3, 1928, and to the public at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia on August 25, 1934.
In 1930, RCA recruited Vladimir Zworykin—who had tried, unsuccessfully, to develop his own all-electronic television system at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh since 1923—to lead its television development department.
Before leaving his old employer, Zworykin visited Farnsworth’s laboratory, and was sufficiently impressed with the performance of the Image Dissector that he reportedly had his team at Westinghouse make several copies of the device for experimentation. Zworykin later abandoned research on the Image Dissector, which at the time required extremely bright illumination of its subjects, and turned his attention to what became the Iconoscope.
In a 1970s series of videotaped interviews, Zworykin recalled that, “Farnsworth was closer to this thing you’re using now [i.e., a video camera] than anybody, because he used the cathode-ray tube for transmission. But, Farnsworth didn’t have the mosaic [of discrete light elements], he didn’t have storage. Therefore, [picture] definition was very low…. But he was very proud, and he stuck to his method.”
Contrary to Zworykin’s statement, Farnsworth’s patent number 2,087,683 for the Image Dissector (filed April 26, 1933) features the “charge storage plate” invented by Tihanyi in 1928 and a “low velocity” method of electron scanning, also describes “discrete particles” whose “potential” is manipulated and “saturated” to varying degrees depending on their velocity. Farnsworth’s patent numbers 2,140,695 and 2,233,888 are for a “charge storage dissector” and “charge storage amplifier,” respectively.
In 1931, David Sarnoff of RCA offered to buy Farnsworth’s patents for US$100,000, with the stipulation that he become an employee of RCA, but Farnsworth refused. In June of that year, Farnsworth joined the Philco company and moved to Philadelphia along with his wife and two children. RCA later filed an interference suit against Farnsworth, claiming Zworykin’s 1923 patent had priority over Farnsworth’s design, despite the fact it could present no evidence that Zworykin had actually produced a functioning transmitter tube before 1931.
Farnsworth had lost two interference claims to Zworykin in 1928, but this time he prevailed and the U.S. Patent Office rendered a decision in 1934 awarding priority of the invention of the image dissector to Farnsworth.
RCA lost a subsequent appeal, but litigation over a variety of issues continued for several years with Sarnoff finally agreeing to pay Farnsworth royalties.
Zworykin received a patent in 1928 for a color transmission version of his 1923 patent application; he also divided his original application in 1931, receiving a patent in 1935, while a second one was eventually issued in 1938 by the Court of Appeals on a non-Farnsworth-related interference case, and over the objection of the Patent Office.
In 1932, while in England to raise money for his legal battles with RCA, Farnsworth met with John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor who had given the world’s first public demonstration of a working television system in London in 1926, using an electro-mechanical imaging system, and who was seeking to develop electronic television receivers. Baird demonstrated his mechanical system for Farnsworth.
In May 1933, Philco severed its relationship with Farnsworth because, said Everson, “it [had] become apparent that Philo’s aim at establishing a broad patent structure through research [was] not identical with the production program of Philco.” In Everson’s view the decision was mutual and amicable. Farnsworth set up shop at 127 East Mermaid Lane in Philadelphia, and in 1934 held the first public exhibition of his device at the Franklin Institute in that city.
After sailing to Europe in 1934, Farnsworth secured an agreement with Goerz-Bosch-Fernseh in Germany. Some image dissector cameras were used to broadcast the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.
Farnsworth returned to his laboratory, and by 1936 his company was regularly transmitting entertainment programs on an experimental basis. That same year, while working with University of Pennsylvania biologists, Farnsworth developed a process to sterilize milk using radio waves. He also invented a fog-penetrating beam for ships and airplanes.
In 1936 he attracted the attention of Collier’s Weekly, which described his work in glowing terms. “One of those amazing facts of modern life that just don’t seem possible – namely, electrically scanned television that seems destined to reach your home next year, was largely given to the world by a nineteen-year-old boy from Utah … Today, barely thirty years old he is setting the specialized world of science on its ears.”
In 1938, Farnsworth established the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation in Fort Wayne, Indiana, with E. A. Nicholas as president and himself as director of research. In September 1939, after a more than decade-long legal battle, RCA finally conceded to a multi-year licensing agreement concerning Farnsworth’s 1927 patent for television totaling $1 million. RCA was then free, after showcasing electronic television at New York World’s Fair on April 20, 1939, to sell electronic television cameras to the public.
Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation was purchased by International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) in 1951. During his time at ITT, Farnsworth worked in a basement laboratory known as “the cave” on Pontiac Street in Fort Wayne. From there he introduced a number of breakthrough concepts, including a defense early warning signal, submarine detection devices, radar calibration equipment and an infrared telescope.
“Philo was a very deep person – tough to engage in conversation, because he was always thinking about what he could do next”, said Art Resler, an ITT photographer who documented Farnsworth’s work in pictures. One of Farnsworth’s most significant contributions at ITT was the PPI Projector, an enhancement on the iconic “circular sweep” radar display, which allowed safe air traffic control from the ground. This system developed in the 1950s was the forerunner of today’s air traffic control systems.
In addition to his electronics research, ITT management agreed to nominally fund Farnsworth’s nuclear fusion research. He and staff members invented and refined a series of fusion reaction tubes called “fusors“. For scientific reasons unknown to Farnsworth and his staff, the necessary reactions lasted no longer than thirty seconds. In December 1965, ITT came under pressure from its board of directors to terminate the expensive project and sell the Farnsworth subsidiary. It was only due to the urging of president Harold Geneen that the 1966 budget was accepted, extending ITT’s fusion research for an additional year. The stress associated with this managerial ultimatum, however, caused Farnsworth to suffer a relapse. A year later he was terminated and eventually allowed medical retirement.
In the spring of 1967, Farnsworth and his family moved back to Utah to continue his fusion research at Brigham Young University, which presented him with an honorary doctorate. The university also offered him office space and an underground concrete bunker for the project.
Realizing ITT would dismantle its fusion lab, Farnsworth invited staff members to accompany him to Salt Lake City, as team members in Philo T. Farnsworth Associates (PTFA). By late 1968, the associates began holding regular business meetings and PTFA was underway. They promptly secured a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and more possibilities were within reach—but financing stalled for the $24,000 a month required for salaries and equipment rental.
By Christmas 1970, PTFA had failed to secure the necessary financing, and the Farnsworths had sold all their own ITT stock and cashed in Philo’s life insurance policy to maintain organizational stability. The underwriter had failed to provide the financial backing that was to have supported the organization during its critical first year. The banks called in all outstanding loans, repossession notices were placed on anything not previously sold, and the Internal Revenue Service put a lock on the laboratory door until delinquent taxes were paid. In January 1971, PTFA disbanded. Farnsworth had begun abusing alcohol in his later years, and as a result became seriously ill with pneumonia, and died on March 11, 1971.
Farnsworth’s wife Elma Gardner “Pem” Farnsworth fought for decades after his death to assure his place in history. Farnsworth always gave her equal credit for creating television, saying, “my wife and I started this TV.” She died on April 27, 2006, at age 98. The inventor and wife were survived by two sons, Russell (then living in New York City), and Kent (then living in Fort Wayne, Indiana).
In 1999, Time magazine included Farnsworth in the “Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century“.[38]
Inventions
Electronic television
Farnsworth worked out the principle of the image dissector in the summer of 1921, not long before his 15th birthday, and demonstrated the first working version on September 7, 1927, having turned 21 the previous August.
A farm boy, his inspiration for scanning an image as series of lines came from the back-and-forth motion used to plow a field.
In the course of a patent interference suit brought by the Radio Corporation of America in 1934 and decided in February 1935, his high school chemistry teacher, Justin Tolman, produced a sketch he had made of a blackboard drawing Farnsworth had shown him in spring 1922. Farnsworth won the suit; RCA appealed the decision in 1936 and lost.
Farnsworth received royalties from RCA, but he never became wealthy. The video camera tube that evolved from the combined work of Farnsworth, Zworykin, and many others was used in all television cameras until the late 20th century, when alternate technologies such as charge-coupled devices began to appear.
Farnsworth also developed the “image oscillite”, a cathode ray tube that displayed the images captured by the image dissector.
Farnsworth called his device an image dissector because it converted individual elements of the image into electricity one at a time. He replaced the spinning disks with caesium, an element that emits electrons when exposed to light.
In 1984, Farnsworth was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Other inventions
At the time he died, Farnsworth held 300 U.S. and foreign patents. His inventions contributed to the development of radar, infra-red night vision devices, the electron microscope, the baby incubator, the gastroscope, and the astronomical telescope.
TV appearance
Although he was the man responsible for its technology, Farnsworth appeared only once on a television program. On July 3, 1957, he was a mystery guest (“Doctor X”) on the CBS quiz show I’ve Got A Secret. He fielded questions from the panel as they unsuccessfully tried to guess his secret (“I invented electronic television.”). For stumping the panel, he received $80 and a carton of Winston cigarettes.
Host Garry Moore then spent a few minutes discussing with Farnsworth his research on such projects as an early analog high-definition television system, flat-screen receivers, and fusion power. Farnsworth said, “There had been attempts to devise a television system using mechanical disks and rotating mirrors and vibrating mirrors—all mechanical. My contribution was to take out the moving parts and make the thing entirely electronic, and that was the concept that I had when I was just a freshman in high school in the Spring of 1921 at age 14.”
When Moore asked about others’ contributions, Farnsworth agreed, “There are literally thousands of inventions important to television. I hold something in excess of 165 American patents.” The host then asked about his current research, and the inventor replied, “In television, we’re attempting first to make better utilization of the bandwidth, because we think we can eventually get in excess of 2,000 lines instead of 525 … and do it on an even narrower channel … which will make for a much sharper picture. We believe in the picture-frame type of a picture, where the visual display will be just a screen. And we hope for a memory, so that the picture will be just as though it’s pasted on there.”
Legacy
In a 1996 videotaped interview by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Elma Farnsworth recounts Philo’s change of heart about the value of television, after seeing how it showed man walking on the moon, in real time, to millions of viewers:
Interviewer: The image dissector was used to send shots back from the moon to earth.
Elma Farnsworth: Right.
Interviewer: What did Phil think of that?
Elma Farnsworth: We were watching it, and, when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, Phil turned to me and said, “Pem, this has made it all worthwhile.” Before then, he wasn’t too sure.
Honors
- In 2006, Farnsworth was posthumously presented the Eagle Scout award when it was discovered he had earned it but had never been presented with it. The award was presented to his wife, Pem, who died four months later.
- Farnsworth was posthumously inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia Hall of Fame in 2006.
- He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2013.
- He is recognized in the Hall of Fame of the Indiana Broadcast Pioneers—which notes that, in addition to his inventive accomplishments, his company owned and operated WGL radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Click “link” below or cut and paste into browser
Philo Farnsworth on “I’ve Got A Secret” TV Show: https://youtu.be/pKM4MNrB25o
Click the 2 links below to see the 2-part story of Philo Farnswoeth produced by PBS
Big Dreams Small Screen: PBS, The American Experience Series VIDEO 29 Minutes Part 1 of 2
Big Dreams Small Screen: PBS, The American Experience Series VIDEO 29 Minutes Part 2 of 2