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The son of converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), Baldwin was born in Fillmore, Utah, in 1878. After attending Brigham Young Academy in Provo, Utah, he attended Utah State Agricultural College in Logan, Utah, and completed his education in physics and electrical engineering at Stanford University. Soon after, while teaching physics and theology at Brigham Young University (BYU), Baldwin became involved in the Mormon Fundamentalist movement. A primary tenet of the Fundamentalist movement was support of polygamy and Baldwin was fired from BYU due to his stand on this issue. Baldwin had married Elizabeth Butler in 1899, so to support his wife and a child he found work as an electrician and air compressor operator at the Mountain Lake mine in Wasatch County, Utah. While at this position, he constructed a voice amplification device utilizing compressed air. To produce this and other electronic devices, Baldwin built a factory on the east side of the Salt Lake Valley. The business became successful and Baldwin reputedly used the profits to support other Fundamentalists. In 1930, fraudulent business practices led to an imprisonment that lasted until 1932. The remainder of his life was impoverished and he died in 1961 in Salt Lake City.