A little off topic, but wouldn't the late 19th century have been the perfect time to be an inventor? You didn't need an advanced degree and a particle accelerator. All you needed were tinkering skills and some basic handtools. The science and technology of that era were perfectly suited to a creative guy sitting at his workshop bench. The Wright brothers for instance: tinkerers. Their world-changing invention was in a bicycle workshop of wood and canvas.
How true. It also helped there was no government bureaucracy regulating every little thing. No need for the Wright Bros. to secure a permit. No liability insurance for the flight tests, etc.
The only hope today for an inventor today is to invent something so totally new, such as the internet, that government hasn't written rules for throttling it.