Utah native Elma G. Farnsworth will be honored next week by more than 100 news media historians for her role as a partner with her husband in the development of the television.
A native of the Vernal area, Farnsworth was part of the crew that produced the first all-electronic television picture under the direction of her husband, Philo, in San Francisco, Sept. 7, 1927.The special award to Elma Farnsworth will be part of the 12th annual conference of the American Journalism Historians Association, which will meet in Salt Lake City Wednesday through Friday, Oct. 6-9.
According to Alf Pratte and Jack Nelson of the BYU communications department, which is host for the conference, historians from 20 states will present more than 50 scholarly papers and a dozen panel discussions at sessions in the Olympus Conference Center.
Conferencegoers will hear addresses from Leonard Arrington, former LDS Church historian; Wendell Ashton, former publisher of the Deseret News; and DeAnn Evans, a communications faculty member at the University of Utah.
Farnsworth will be honored at a reception hosted by the Deseret News and KSL in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building Thursday, Oct. 7. The Salt Lake Tribune will play host to the historians at a reception at Snowbird on Friday, Oct. 8.
Farnsworth's account of the "romance and discovery of the invisible frontier" of television is chronicled in her book, "Distant Vision," published in 1990.
The 450-member American Journalism Historians Association promotes research and teaching of media history.