Alfred Carlton Gilbert was responsible for revolutionizing the educational toy industry. A.C. Gilbert, as he was known, was a true modern renaissance man. He was a athlete, a doctor although he never practiced and a capatalist. A person described him as blending "the familar qualities of Frank Merriwell, Theodore Roosevelt, Peter Pan and Horatio Alger"11. As a star athlete at Yale, Gilbert managed to win many tournaments in wrestling, track and especially pole vaulting. Pole vaulting would eventually take him to the Olympics where he managed to win the Olympic gold medal in 190812. After his athletic career was over Gilbert embarked on the next phase of his life but would never forget the energy, imagination and hard work he put towards sports.
Gilbert started the Mysto Magic Company in 1909 and started to produce magic games as well as chemistry sets. These chemistry sets would become widely popular. As a result of the company becoming more educational and less magical, the company was renamed the A.C. Gilbert Company1. The appeal of his chemistry sets and Gilbert himself were an instant hit. In fact in the late 1920's Yale University conducted a study of why the chemistry majors were increasing at an astounding rate. The surprising answer to the study was that the chemistry sets that these students had received in childhood by Mr. Gilbert propelled them to take up the science10. While these toys would make Gilbert a substantial profit his true big accomplishment came by accident.
One day A.C. Gilbert was sitting waiting for a train as he often did and he saw the girders on which the new building was being constructed. He then observed the fascination people had in watching the progress of this new building. "I found it interesting to watch their progress from week to week, and most other travelers did too." Gilbert went on to say that "it seems the most natural thing in the world that I should think about how fascinated boys might be in building things out of girders."1.
While Gilbert was not the first to invent a construction toy, he certainly revolutionized the industry. Eric Kelman from the other class did a project on Monopoly. In his analysis he points out the inventor of Monopoly did not completely invent the game from scratch. He borrowed much from a previous creator but added his own touches to refine the game. This is what Gilbert did also. He made his set better and more marketable than anyone else on the market. He created the square metal girder and added that to the already existing toys with pulleys, gears and strips of metal. Gilbert would expand on his idea by inventing curved girders and a motor to add to the appeal of the toy. Gilbert created eight models of his erector set each one improving on the previous one2.
A.C. Gilbert continued to make toys well until the 1950's . He produced an array of educational toys but the erector set would stay the most popular. These toys included electric trains, puzzles, and microscope sets. Gilbert would later retire in 1954 and spent his last days as a photographer in Africa. A.C. Gilbert died in 1961 at the age of 76 2. Not to long after the A.C. Gilbert Company was broken up and the pattens sold.
A.C. Gilbert's Erector sets are not forgotten today. A person can walk into any toy store and find an erector set. I believe Gilbert's himself summed up his ability the best: "I've remained a boy at heart and only introduced items that appealed to me. I figured they would appeal to all boys"11.
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