Clifford Samuels 17-Year-Old Des Moines Inventor

 

Clifford Samuels and his machine. (Des Moines Register. November 26, 1911)

Most 17-year-olds in 1911 spent their time thinking about school, baseball, or getting into trouble.

Clifford Samuels of Des Moines spent two years building a wireless telegraph machine.

The whole thing cost him seven bucks.

He became obsessed. His grades started slipping. Friends hardly saw him. Family complained he spent all his time reading, fooling with wires, and staring off into space. Sometimes he got so wrapped up in it that he forgot to eat.

And then he spent a day with a Navy officer learning about wireless communication. When he got home, he started building his own machine.

Then came the big test.

After two years of tinkering, reading, and daydreaming, Clifford fired the machine up.

It worked. On the first try.

Clifford told a reporter for the Des Moines Register that it could send messages up to fifteen miles and pick up signals from as far away as three hundred miles. Not exactly small-time stuff for a high school kid in 1911.