Word: gilberts
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...generations of American boys, the name of A. C. (for Alfred Carlton) Gilbert has evoked the magic of discovery and invention. The firm that Gilbert founded and built into the nation's leading maker of scientific and educational toys, New Haven's A. C. Gilbert Co., pours forth a whole world of challenging and instructive toys that range from his famous Erector set and American Flyer scale-model electric trains to compact lessons in chemistry, biology and physics. Far more than a successful businessman (his firm now sells $13 million a year in some 50 items), Gilbert...
Life Is a Game. "I've remained a boy at heart," said Gilbert, "I've introduced only items that appealed to me-and I figured they would appeal to all boys." Gilbert's long boyhood began in Salem, Ore., where he won his first contest-a tricycle race-when he was seven, and immediately began to form the philosophy that ruled his life: "Everything in life is a game, and the important thing is to win." A frail boy, Gilbert built himself into a superb athlete, became an expert at wrestling, track, bag punching, pole vaulting...
...Gilbert helped pay his way through Yale by mystifying audiences with magic tricks, soon began making simple magic kits for students. When a department store began selling his kits, he set up the Mysto Manufacturing Co. in a New Haven tool shed and, after he received his M.D., went into business. He did not do well until he got the idea for the Erector set while absentmindedly watching a network of girders being erected for the electrification of the New Haven Railroad. He and his wife made the first set from cardboard parts. In 1916 he changed his firm...
Atomic Holocaust? Gilbert went on to become a tycoon. He bought a 600-acre estate outside New Haven, called it Paradise, and stocked it with fish, game and trophies from hunting expeditions. He insisted on punching the time clock each day as he reported for work with his 2,000 employees (he also punched a bag daily), often showed up in old, patched clothes. He kept up his interest in sports as a pole vaulting coach at Yale for many years (he authored the Encyclopaedia Britannica's article on pole vaulting) and, ever the perfectionist, gave up golf after...
Died. Alfred Carlton Gilbert, 76, toy inventor and manufacturer who convinced millions of parents that a boy's best friend is his Erector set and who himself lived a real life of fun and games as Olympic pole vaulter and big-game hunter; of a heart attack; in Boston (see BUSINESS...