In the decades between the 1950's and the widespread use of smartphones, nearly every bedroom in America has some version of the appliance above sitting on a stand near the top of the mattress. The origins of the clock radio are unknown, and the U.S. Patent Office has no record of it on file. Credit is often given to James F. Reynolds and Paul L. Schroth Sr. for inventing the clock radio sometime during the 1940s. According to Answers.com, Reynolds' grandson says Granddad created the clock radio because "the alarm quit working on his windup clock ... so he rigged the key on the back of the clock to the volume knob on the radio. When the alarm started going off, the key would spin around and turn the volume up on the radio." Necessity truly was the mother of this invention.
This particular beauty sits in the Raton Museum in Raton New Mexico and is decked out with the best technology of the day: a polymer (plastic) case, monophonic AM radio, a clock face straight out of "The Jetsons", a control knob to choose whether to wake to the alarm or music, and one of mankind's greatest inventions...the snooze button. This and a princess phone were the primary elements of a cool bedroom in the mid-60's.
