On November 29th, the Museum will open an exhibition celebrating the centennial of the Erector Set. In the Fall of 1913, Alfred Carleton Gilbert, a 29 year old Yale graduate, brought a steel construction set to market.
Its girders echoed the catenary towers that Gilbert had watched electrify railway access to Manhattan’s new Grand Central Terminal. Gilbert’s New Haven factory packaged that revolution, steel and electric motors, for young hands. Gilbert persuaded American parents that Erector Set models were essential rehearsal for building a new age.