Posted on 12/25/2011 2:56:00 AM PST by AnAmericanAbroad
Before video games and robotics competitions, toys were much simpler: girls got dolls; boys got model trains and bicycles. Toys that promoted learning and experimentation were rare until one inventor, Alfred Carlton (“A. C.”) Gilbert, started making toys that taught children about science and engineering. His most famous, the Erector set, became one of the best -selling toys of its day and inspired children across the country to build everything from bridges to robots.
Gilbert was a man of many talents. He financed his medical degree from Yale University by working as a magician, invented the pole-vaulting box and won a gold medal in the sport in 1908, and broke the world record for consecutive chin-ups—39 in a row. In 1918 he became "the man who saved Christmas" by convincing Congress not to ban toy production during the war.
But he is most famous for his toys. Gilbert founded the A. C. Gilbert Company and went on to invent and sell all kinds of classic science toys from chemistry sets to robots to microscopes. Gilbert's real innovation was to provide kids with a way to experiment with real-life tools and parts, says William Brown, director of the Eli Whitney Museum in Hamden, Conn., where a large collection of Gilbert toys is on display. "They had that feel of being not symbolic but part of the real world," he says. "You were working with a motor for your Erector set that could actually move heavy things."
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...
Of course nowadays, can you even imagine taking the Atomic Energy Set through the airport give the TSA? Bear in mind this toy contained real uranium; try explaining you're bringing that to Florida (or wherever) for little Billy for Christmas! You're likely to find yourself spending the next several Christmas holidays in Gitmo.
Merry Christmas to one and all.
Not only the Atomic Energy set, can you imagine the Consumber Products Safety Commission getting its hands on a CHEMISTRY set? Why, a child might hurt themselves with all those chemicals. Not ot mention the possibility of cuts from a broken test tube. And the alchohol lamp with its open flame? Now the Erector set. There is a real hazard. All those tiny nuts and bolts a child might swallow.
Of course, I had an Erector set, and my brother had a chemistry set, and we both survived.
Erector sets, microscopes, trains, chemistry sets - I can’t imagine growing up without them.
I had an Erector Set as well. I’m still alive.
Lordy, it’s a miracle!!
It’s fair to say that nowadays, such toys would be an absolute impossibility, not just because of the CPSC, but because the moment little Jimmy burned himself, or blew up the garage or whatever, the parents would file a multi-million dollar lawsuit.
With regard to the Atomic Energy Set, can you imagine the hysteria the media would go into? “Oh my God! It’s the al-Qaeda junior jihadi atomic bomb toy!”
I used to have a children’s book about atomic energy; it was hard bound, blue or teal in color, and had an “atomic genie” illustration on the front. I wish I still had it, it was a lot different from the average children’s book today.
(The electric motor was probably overbuilt by an incredible factor.)
This brings back the memories.
Mr. niteowl77
I remember blowing glass using an alcohol lamp with an attachment that allowed the user to blow air into the flame and increase the temperature. Burned myself several times on hot glass. My parents reaction? “Guess you learned that hot glass will burn you.” Or words similar to those. A friend and I also made our own gunpowder. Can you imagine a 10 or 12 year old going to the neighborhood drug store now and asking for 5 lbs of salt peter? Here comes the ATF!
LOL!
ATF; try Homeland Security!
There is still a toy like this in the Czech Republic! I've seen at a toystore that specializes in technical/educational toys. I'll have to check it out the next time I go downtown. I can't even imagine something like this in the USA anymore; a functioning crucible that gets up to 400 F? The CPSC would never allow it.
Reminds me of Creepy Crawlers.
Same concept except rubber instead of metal.
ATOMIC ENERGY SET: The original Atomic Energy set sold for $49.50 in 1950, the modern equivalent of $458.99, and came with four different kinds of uranium ore. It also included a Geiger counter, a government manual called Prospecting for Uranium and a comic book called Learn How Dagwood Splits the Atom ....
Blondie.... I split the atom...
"When masculinity is outlawed, only...WAIT! we're there already!"
"When thermite is outlawed, it won't make any difference."
Cheers!
...oh, and Merry Christmas.
I had the Erector set, Physics set, Chemistry set and Microscope. The microscope was rather mediocre but I loved the rest of them.
A ‘mail box flag’ hatchet was a must have item, even though the original owners weren't too happy about finding their mail box missing the ‘flag’.
They were made of steel back in the day, an inner-tube strip wrapped handle and a sidewalk honed edge did make a hatchet able to cut down small trees.
A variety of things could be fashioned with enough small trees. Forts and rafts were popular projects. Both required lots of rope. Area clotheslines supplied ample rope to lash together fairly large rafts, so large in fact that we soon learned that they had to be built ‘on site’.
If not we would have needed to ‘borrow’ a tractor or bulldozer to move them.
Even at a young age we knew adults would find no humor in ‘loaning’ us an item that valuable.
After a week or so, and turning several acres of wooded lake frontage into a clear-cut of brush and stumps, it was finally launch day.
Our dreams of Huck Finn like adventure were soon dashed by the fact that green log rafts with a small fort on top didn't float very well.
We were able to get it into water about chin deep of the tallest in our group before we tried climbing on and it sank to the bottom, never to rise again.
A couple days later we were setting on the bank thinking up ways to raise the raft, when we noticed lots of fish gathered over the raft. We invented the first man made fishing structure!
The rest of summer was spent making fishing poles and fishing over the raft.
Y’all can go here to download the “Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments” in pdf form. It is about 30MB but lots of neat stuff and a nice compliment to the chemistry set.
Merry Christmas :-)
alfa6 ;>}
The most fun I had with my Gilbert chemistry set was mixing chemicals at random just to see what would happen.
And, yes, some strange things DID happen!
And they were melting LEAD! Ahhh! None of you kids are going to live to tell about it!
When I was a kid, I used to go down the street to a gas station and pick up all the lead tire weights they tossed at the side of the building. I would melt them down on the kitchen stove and eventually had a chunk the size of a softball.
I'm still alive and functioning 50 some years later!
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