(1906 – 1971) Inventor of the television, Farnsworth’s eventual influence on Utah was as significant as his influence on the rest of the world. TV transformed daily life. A native Utahn educated at BYU, Farnsworth was only 21 when, with a camera, synchronization system and receiver, he produced the first operational all-electronic television system.
“Everybody’s child is mine,” this youth club founder said. The Kiwanis-Felt Boys and Girls Club, 440 South 900 East, traces its beginning to two boys adrift on the streets of downtown Salt Lake City and schoolteacher and businesswoman—Anne Marie Fox Felt. Marie, as she was called, was born in Salt Lake City on July 24, 1900, to Jesse M. Fox …
This noted author of young adult books created the Great Brain. John Dennis Fitzgerald was born in Price, Utah, on February 3, 1906, to Thomas and Minnie Melsen Fitzgerald. His father had a pharmacy degree but engaged in a number of business ventures and served on the Price Town Council for four years. John graduated from Carbon High School at …
(1888 – 1960) Legendary newspaper publisher who guided The Salt Lake Tribune between 1924 and 1960, softening the paper’s traditional harsh anti-Mormon rhetoric. He was part of a powerful civic triumvirate with LDS President McKay and Salt Lake Chamber head Gus Backman.
A brilliant research physicist, Harvey Fletcher was called the father of stereo. Anyone who likes movies or stereo recordings owes some of his enjoyment to the research of Harvey Fletcher. Those who can hear or speak with the help of a hearing aid or an artificial larynx also owe him a vote of thanks. An outstanding research physicist, teacher, and …
A mining camp doctor, he ran wild rivers and explored Antarctica. Russell G. Frazier claimed that he was predestined both by ancestry and early upbringing for the adventuresome career be enjoyed as a mining camp physician, river runner, and Antarctic explorer. One of his ancestors, he said, was John Paul Jones, and another was one of George Washington’s officers who …
Lavina Christensen Fugal was named America’s Mother of the Year in 1955. Born September 9, 1879, in Pleasant Grove, Utah County, to Danish immigrants Anna Katrina Jensen and Jens Christensen, Lavina attended local schools and helped with farm chores. She graduated from Brigham Young Academy but turned down a scholarship to the University of Utah because she did not have …
She cared about people of every race and creed. Born August 5, 1890, in Jackson, Tennessee, to Fosh Elliott and Ann Elizabeth Copeland Grimes, Nettie was a teacher and an accomplished musician who had never ventured outside her native state until her marriage in 1914 to William Gregory. Also a native Tennessean, he had taken up permanent residence in Salt …
He became one of the most famous lyricists of the Broadway stage. Music came into Otto Harbach’s life at an early age. One of his first memories was of his mother’s singing. Later, when his brothers started a small orchestra, he learned to play his father’s violin and joined them. He was born in Salt Lake City on August 18, …
Gibbs M. Smith Utah History Encyclopedia, 1994 Born in Gavle, Sweden, on 7 October 1879, Joe Hill, also known as Joseph Hillstrom and Joel Hagglund, was an American labor songwriter and martyr who was executed in Salt Lake City on 19 November 1915. He immigrated to the lower east side Bowery section of New York City via Ellis Island in …