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Alfred Carlton Gilbert was born in 1884 in Salem, Oregon. A talented athlete and student, he set the world record for consecutive chin-ups (39) in 1900, when he was only 16. He attended Oregon’s Pacific University, where he was a football quarterback, a wrestler, and a track and field athlete. He transferred to Yale in 1902, graduating with a medical degree in 1909. He continued to compete in wrestling and track and field, setting records in the long jump and his primary sport, the pole vault. He also found a creative way to support himself during his studies: performing magic, which he had loved since childhood.
Gilbert’s interests often overlapped, and his innovative and experimental spirit first showed through in his athletic career. He developed the pole vault box, a small pit into which the vaulting pole is inserted at the start of the jump. This replaced the earlier method of driving in a spike at the end of the pole. He also began jumping with more flexible bamboo poles, rather than wooden ones. His hard practice and new ideas led him to set world records. While still a student at Yale, he travelled to London to compete in the 1908 Summer Olympics. Officials did not approve of his innovative methods, so he had to use a wooden pole without the vault box. Nevertheless, he still won gold (tying with another American, Edward Cook) and set an Olympic record.
After completing his medical degree in 1909, Gilbert decided not to become a doctor. Instead, he followed his passion for magic, play, and invention. He and his friend John Petrie established Mysto Manufacturing, a company manufacturing magic sets. In 1916, following on the success of the first Erector sets (introduced in 1913), Mysto changed its name to A.C. Gilbert company. In 1938, Gilbert expanded into model trains by purchasing the American Flyer company. Other popular A.C. Gilbert products included chemistry sets and telescopes.
In the 1940s and 1950s, Gilbert’s toys were promoted at the Gilbert Hall of Science in New York City, a combined store and museum intended to inspire children to learn about science and invention. Halls in other cities followed.
Gilbert’s toys encouraged children to learn about engineering, science, and other subjects through building, experimentation, and most of all play - a philosophy carried on by the Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop today.
A.C. Gilbert Co. was also groundbreaking in other ways. In 1921, as part of a short-lived effort to make and sell radio receivers, they established WCJ, the first licensed radio station in Connecticut (and one of the first in the nation). The station broadcasted via wires strung between a metal tower and the A.C. Gilbert factory smokestack. Gilbert is also credited with introducing benefits for his employees which were rare at the time, including maternity leave and free medical and legal advice.
Gilbert also operated another toy company, La Velle Toys, which manufactured and marketed toys which were less closely related to the A.C. Gilbert Company mission of education through play. These included Anchor Blocks, sports-themed toys, and toys marketed for girls. Until the 1950s, the A.C. Gilbert Company’s educational toys were marketed almost exclusively to boys.
Gilbert’s products were hugely successful, and he lived a full life pursuing his diverse interests. In 1908, he married Mary Thompson, who he had met at college in Oregon. She would go on to help him to develop prototypes of his toys, including the Erector Set. They had three children. Gilbert coached pole vault at Yale, introducing more innovations to the sport and guiding champions and world record holders. He remained involved with the Olympics, taking leadership roles with the US Olympics Committee and Olympic Teams, including serving as chef de mission (leader and representative) for the US teams at the 1932 and 1936 Games and as a USOC representative at the 1948 Games. He enjoyed big game hunting and donated many specimens to the Yale Peabody Museum. He also loved dogs, breeding German Shepherds, including "Asta von Kaltenweide", AKC 487721, a national and world champion of the breed in 1926.
A.C. Gilbert retired in 1954, and the family sold its remaining shares in the company after his death in 1961. His son, Alfred Carlton Gilbert Jr., had graduated from Yale with an engineering degree. He remained involved in the company, but he died in 1964, aged only 44. The company struggled to survive and shut its doors in 1967. A.C. Gilbert Company’s large factory, Erector Square, still stands in the Fair Haven neighborhood of New Haven. It now hosts many artists’ studios, supporting new forms of innovation and creativity.