Introduced in 1913 by A.C. Gilbert, Erector sets allowed children to build working models of everything from bridges to locomotives using metal beams, gears, and motors. Dubbed “the toy that builds ...

THE MAN WHO CHANGED HOW BOYS AND TOYS WERE MADE By Bruce Watson Viking. 216 pp. $24.95 The title of Bruce Watson's strange little biography of Alfred C. Gilbert may seem hyperbolic, but it is entirely ...