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Lee de Forest, born 1873 in Iowa, died 1961 in Los Angeles

He was one of the most productive and controversial inventors of the 20th Century


Dr. Lee de Forest was an inventor who changed the world with electronics.

His two major inventions were the vacuum tube and sound for motion pictures.

Lee de Forest was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1873. His minister father moved the family to Alabama to become President of Talledega College, a small black school. But while de Forest grew up in the deep South, his education was formal and upper class.

He received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School. His 1899 dissertation was titled: "The Reflection of Hertzian Waves at the End of Parallel Wires."


After graduation from Yale he worked briefly for several companies, Western Electric among them. But most of his life was spent as an independent inventor, for which he received over 180 patents.
Lee de Forest built wireless telegraph devices for the U.S. Navy
His final years were spent in Hollywood
De Forest spent his happiest and final 30 years in Hollywood, pictured on the left with a group of radio entertainers.

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