Philo T Farnsworth (1906-1971)was a Mormon farm boy who is the undisputed inventor of television yet he made little money and got little credit for his efforts. Instead he was tied up in litigation by David Sarnoff and his RCA corporate lawyers, and, although he eventually was ruled the sole inventor of TV by the US Patent Office, he collected precious few royalties from Sarnoff and RCA before his patent expired in 1947 shortly before the post war boom in TV sets really took off. In 1935 the US Patent Office declared that Farnsworth was the undisputed inventor of TV. However Sarnoff and RCA tied Farnsworth up in litigation that prevented Farnsworth from marketing a single TV set. Then along came World War II which prevented Farnsworth from pursuing his commercial venture. After the war Farnsworth had two years to market and collect royalties before his patent expired in 1947 and TV became public domain. It wasn't until after 1947 that TV sales really took off with the result that RCA didn't have to pay royalties to Farnsworth at all and most of the profits went to RCA. Farnsworth eventually died depressed and alcoholic having spent his life dedicated to his invention. The basic history of the invention is the following:
In 1921 the 14-year-old Mormon had an idea while working on his father's Idaho farm. Mowing hay in rows, Philo realized an electron beam could scan a picture in horizontal lines, reproducing the image almost instantaneously. This would prove to be a critical breakthrough in Philo Farnsworth's invention of the television in 1927.
Earlier TV devices had been based on an 1884 invention called the scanning disk, patented by Paul Nipkow. Riddled with holes, the large disk spun in front of an object while a photoelectric cell recorded changes in light. Depending on the electricity transmitted by the photoelectric cell, an array of light bulbs would glow or remain dark. Though Nipkow's mechanical system could not scan and deliver a clear, live-action image, most would-be TV inventors still hoped to perfect it.
So Farnsworth used electronics instead of a mechanical device to scan the picture a line at a time similar to the way he raked hay a row at a time. With the advent of digital TV, each row is divided up into a number of picture elements or pixels which are then given a digital value. But Farnsworth's black and white TV was simpler. The camera recorded an analog signal which represented the values between pure black and pure white continuously, a line at a time, using the photoelectric effect to convert light intensity into an electron stream. This signal was then converted into a radio wave that was sent out over the air and then reconverted into an electron stream at the receiver. The electron beam was then swept back and forth in rows or lines (similar to Farnsworth's hay field) across a cathode ray tube which then lit up according to the lightness or darkness of the original image.
Interested in electricity and science from an early age, Philo explained his ideas for television in a diagram to his high school teacher. This diagram turned out to be invaluable when the Patent Office had to decide who had precedence in the invention of television. They decided that Farnsworth's ideas took precedence and he was issued a patent in 1927. At the age of 19, having dropped out of college, Philo persuaded two backers to put up the money necessary for him to develop his ideas. He had to develop a camera that would turn an image into a stream of electrons and a television tube that would turn a stream of electrons into an image.
Meanwhile, in 1929 David Sarnoff hired Vladimir Zworykin, a Russian emigre like himself, who had a competing version of electronic television. Sarnoff had engineered a virtual monopily for RCA in the radio industry, was sitting on a large capital war chest, and was determined to do it again with television. In 1930 Sarnoff sent Zworykin to California to check out Farnsworth's invention which was considerably more developed at that time than Zworykin's. Farnsworth had a working TV camera. Farnsworth was too naive to realize that Zworykin's mission was to steal his ideas for RCA which then tried to do a work-around of Farnsworth's patent. Zworykin told Farnsworth disingenuously, "That's a beautiful tube. I wish I had invented it." Later Sarnoff himself visited Farnsworth and offered him $100,000 for his invention. Farnsworth refused since he felt that, as the inventor, he should be paid royalties instead. Sarnoff had famously said, "RCA doesn't pay royalties; we collect them."
In 1931, Farnsworth found a company that agreed to license his television technology. In an old brick building in Philadelphia, Farnsworth signed a secret deal with a radio company called Philco that wanted to get a head start in television. They agreed to his terms and offered to fund his research if he would bring his lab to Philadelphia. The move was shrouded in secrecy because Philco wanted to hide their plans from RCA. After leaving Philco and forming his own company, Farnsworth demonstrated live TV in Philadelphia in 1934. Sarnoff decided to use his corporate might and his team of patent lawyers to fight Farnsworth, who had only one patent attorney, in court. Teetering on the verge of bankruptcy Farnsworth signed a deal with an English company that enabled him to put the first TV station on the air in 1936.
Burned out by constant work and pressure, Farnsworth started to drink heavily, decided to get away form the TV business and retreated to a farm in Maine. Meanwhile, David Sarnoff was finally ready to unveil RCA television to America. The history books would say that television was born in 1939 at the New York World's Fair. Farnsworth's first public demonstration in Philadelphia, five years earlier, was forgotten. At the World's Fair in 1939, David Sarnoff
stated, "We have added radio sight to sound." Although RCA lore would not mention Farnsworth as having anything to do with bringing TV to the world, after seven years of crippling litigation, Farnsworth finally won his case against RCA. In October, 1939, Sarnoff was forced to admit defeat. For the first time in RCA's history, royalties would be paid to an outside inventor. The small inventor had dared to take on the giant corporation, and he had won. But it was a Pyrrhic victory. Just as TV was about to go into production, World War II intervened. By the time the war was over, Farnworth had just two years left before his patent would become public domain. So in the end, he was shoved aside and RCA, the corporation, was the one that got the credit for developing and presenting television to the American people.
After the war Farnsworth worked on a variety of projects for ITT. But his health deteriorated due to alcoholism and depression. He had to sit by while Sarnoff and RCA took all the credit and the money for the invention of television. As always his ventures teetered on the verge of bankruptcy. Stress associated with his job threw Farnsworth into relapse. He was eventually terminated and allowed medical retirement.
In the spring off 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 location for the project. Realizing the fusion lab was to be dismantled at ITT, Farnsworth invited staff members to accompany him to Salt Lake City as team members in his planned Philo T. Farnsworth Associates (PTFA) organization. By late 1968 the associates began holding regular business meetings and PTFA was underway. However, although a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was promptly secured and more possibilities were within reach, the financing needed to pay the $24,000 in monthly expenses for equipment rental and salaries was stalled.
By Christmas 1970, PTFA had failed to secure the necessary financing and the Farnsworths had sold all their own ITT stock and cashed out Philo's life insurance policy to maintain organization 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. During January 1970, Philo T. Farnsworth Associates disbanded. Farnsworth became seriously ill with pneumonia and died on 11 March 1971, broke and depressed.
Philo Farnsworth was named one of Time magazine's 100 greatest scientists and thinkers of the 20th century. He had had high hopes for television - that it would bring the world together and provide unlimited educational opportunities for all. Like the inventor of radio, Edwin Armstrong, and the inventor of the triode, Lee de Forest, he was sadly disillusioned by the programming that was put on his invention instead. However, in 1969 he and his wife, Pem, watched a man walk on the moon, and he knew his work had been worthwhile. Meanwhile, David Sarnoff, who had driven Armstrong to suicide over his invention of FM radio and Farnsworth to drink and depression, continued to make profits for RCA Corporation.
