Lee De Forest

A detailed Summary of Lee De Forest

Lee De Forest was born Aug. 26, 1873, Council Bluffs, Iowa. De Forest was the son of a Congregational minister. His father moved the family to Alabama and there assumed the presidency of the nearly bankrupt Talladega College for Negroes. Excluded by citizens of the white community who resented his father's efforts to educate blacks, Lee and his brother and sister made friends from among the black children of the town and spent a happy although sternly disciplined childhood in this rural community. (Kraeuter, 74). As a child he was fascinated with machinery and was often excited when hearing of the many technological advances during the late 19th century. He began tinkering and inventing things even in high school, often trying to build things that he could sell for money. By the age of 13 he was an enthusiastic inventor of mechanical gadgets such as a miniature blast furnace and locomotive, and a working silverplating apparatus. (A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries).

His father had planned for him to follow him in a career in the clergy, but Lee wanted to go to school for science and, in 1893, enrolled at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, one of the few institutions in the United S

Kraeuter, David W. (1992). Radio and Television Pioneers.

New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/index.html

Lee De Forest was a pioneer in the development of wireless telegraphy, sound pictures, and television. His triode made practicable transcontinental telephony, both wire and wireless, and led to the foundation of the radio industry. He is frequently called "the father of radio." (Kraeuter, 75). The first high-powered naval radio stations were designed and installed by him Lee De Forest invented the audion. The audion, or triode, at the heart of the vacuum tube is what the transistor was built to replace. The audion helped AT&T set up coast-to-coast phone service, and it was also used in everything from radios to televisions to the first computers. (A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries, 1999). By the time he died he had over 300 patents, but few of them ever had much success. In fact, De Forest seemed to have a long streak of failures. He was regularly involved in patent lawsuits (indeed, he spent his fortune on legal bills). He went through four marriages, had a number of failed companies, was defrauded by his business partners, and was even once indicted (but later acquitted) for mail fraud. (Kraeuter, 79).

De Forest invented the Audion, or triode, device in 1906, by inserting a grid into the center of a vacuum tube. Applying voltage to the grid c

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Category: People