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Charles Wallace Peterson was born in Seattle in 1893. His parents donated land to the then-new Seattle Seminary (now Seattle Pacific University) and Charles attended Seattle Seminary for his elementary education and graduated from Queen Anne High School in 1912. His interest in science, particularly the emerging field of radio technology, led to a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Washington in 1918.

After serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the First World War, Peterson married Hazel Alberts in 1922. The couple moved to Illinois so that Peterson could teach in the chemistry department at Greenville College. While at Greenville, Peterson designed a new type of radio speaker and received a patent for it from the United States Patent Office. In 1924, Peterson contracted with Crosley Radio Corporation of Cincinnati to produce the Musicone Speaker. The success of the speaker led to several other designs including the Super Musicone, the Dynacone and the Tilt Table Musicone, all of which were based on Peterson's design. Peterson then turned his focus to his hobby of photography, and began designing improvements for cameras. He demonstrated a design to the Eastman Kodak Company in 1938, and Kodak hired Peterson as a Senior Design Engineer in 1939. He worked for Kodak and lived in Rochester, New York, until 1959. In 1967, Seattle Pacific College awarded Peterson an honorary doctorate of science. He died in 1972.