Genius in toyland - A.C. Gilbert, toy manufacturer and inventor - Brief Article

Sunset, August, 2000 by Peter Fish

* SALEM, OREGON--The bright toy boxes depict boys building intimidating structures out of girders. Railroad Bridges. The Revolving Dock Hoist. Observing the industrious lads is a 50-ish man in a sober wool suit. Above him is printed his greeting: "Hello Boys! That's a Fine Model!" The boys answer, "That's because it's Erector!"

The man's name was A.C. Gilbert. "A person of enormous breadth," says Pam Vorachek, executive director of A.C. Gilbert's Discovery Village in Salem, Oregon. Another Gilbert scholar, Bill Brown of the Eli Whitney Museum in Hamden, Connecticut, puts it this way: "There are two epic figures of American toys-two showmen who used toys to create worlds of their own. One of them was Walt Disney The other one was A.C. Gilbert."

There is nothing like a toy to kindle memories of vanished youth: Proust's madeleine can't hold a candle to the clayey smell of Play-Doh. So I have come to Salem to learn more about the man who inspired--in my case, tormented--so many American children. Housed in a cheerful cluster of restored Victorians on the east bank of the Willamette River, A.C. Gilbert's Discovery Village is more than Gilbert memorabilia. It has science exhibits and an exuberant playground and the National Toy Hall of Fame. But Gilbert still looms over it, the king of toyland.

His life possessed an epic quality, of a particularly boyish, American sort, as if Homer had written The Hardy Boys. Gilbert was born in Salem in 1884. By his early 20s, he had toured in a traveling minstrel show as "Champion Boy Bag Puncher of the World," performed magic shows to put himself through Yale, and competed in pole vault in the 1908 London Olympics. He was riding the train to New York when his life's inspiration hit: Watching construction of steel towers, he thought that boys might be fascinated by building things out of girders themselves. The Erector Set was born.

When you view the Gilbert exhibits, you come to see how he managed to weld his twin interests, magic and engineering, in a way that tapped into America's love of scientists and show-offs. Gilbert toys were expensive, yes, but they were intended to nurture future engineers, chemists, and captains of industry. To his Erector Set, Gilbert added the Gilbert Chemistry Experiment Lab and American Flyer Trains. Eventually he introduced the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab, whose package promised: "Thrilling to watch! Gilbert Spinthariscope shows you actual Atomic disintegration of radioactive material!"

A little stunned by the thought of 10-year-olds toying with vials of uranium 238, I tell Pam Vorachek, "He had high expectations of kids."

"Well," she answers, "what's wrong with that?"

Nothing, except that in the end his hopes were perhaps a bit high. By the 1960s, Gilbert toys had fallen out of fashion, deemed too demanding for an age whose children were increasingly beguiled by television. I was one of those underachievers. I found my Erector Set immensely frustrating: I could no more build the Revolving Dock Hoist than I could have designed Sputnik 1.

It seems a little pointless to visit a children's museum without a child, so I made sure to take my 3-year-old son to A.C. Gilbert's Discovery Village. I sat him down on a bench where today's visitors can play with Erector Sets of yesteryear.

As we experimented with the girders, nuts, and bolts, I knew we were part of a trend. Currently Gilbert is enjoying a posthumous renaissance. An A.C. Gilbert Heritage Society promotes his work; ancient Erector Sets and chemistry labs fetch high prices on eBay.

Finally, we piece something together.

"What is it?" I ask my son.

He answers, as if it were obvious, "A bridge."

We study the bridge. I imagine him in 30 years, blueprints tucked under his arm, confidently appraising one of his own complex designs--a skyscraper, a space station, or some other marvel that regains our family honor. In my mind I can almost hear the wool-suited one greeting us now: "Hello boys! That's a fine model!"

"Ah," I answer. "That's because it's Erector."