A hundred years ago this month, the November 1920 issue of Boys’ Life asked scouts to ponder the question of whether they should pursue a career in radio.

The article was an excerpt from the merit badge pamphlet for “Wireless Electricity.”  I’ve never run across this name before, but it’s used throughout the article.  According to Wikipedia, Wireless merit badge was discontinued in 1923 and replaced by Radio, and I didn’t find any reference to the name Wireless Electricity.

The article talks about the advantages of a career in radio, such as the possibility of traveling the world as a shipboard radio operator.  It also points out that there was a demand for persons to fill these lucrative positions.  While the article pointed out that there were a number of good schools, it also made clear that most in the profession were self-trained as amateurs, and that this was one of the rare cases where one could get a good job based on such self-education.

The magazine also included some pointers for building a detector, shown at the bottom of the page.