Erector Sets and Other Engineering and Building Toys

A.C. Gilbert introduced the Erector Set in 1913. He claimed to be inspired by seeing the steel gantrys erected over the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad as the railway was electrified in 1911. He was also likely inspired by the very similar British Meccano toys. Erector was marketed as a highly flexible building toy that replicated structural steel, which was then still a very new technological innovation. Later sets also included small electric motors to move parts, wiring, and lights, allowing for ever more varied and complex building projects. The Company also sold other engineering and building related toys such as electrical sets, building blocks, and tool sets.

The A.C. Gilbert Company building blocks, Anchor Blocks, had a complicated history. Anchor Blocks were a competitor of Erector Sets in the 1910s. The blocks, which were made of a stone mixture and therefore heavier-duty than wooden blocks, had originated in Germany as Anker Blocks, which are still manufactured today. The American Anchor Blocks company was also owned by a German-born man, A. Paul Fricke. In 1918, during World War I, the company was seized by the US Government. A.C. Gilbert purchased the company and began producing Anchor Blocks. The blocks were sometimes sold as A.C. Gilbert Company products and sometimes as products of La Velle Toys, another Gilbert Company.

Toys like Erector Sets and Anchor Blocks encouraged experimentation and practical technical learning through play, a philosophy carried forward at the EWMW today. Like the Gilbert toys, programs are designed to develop age-appropriate skills in hand-building and experimentation. Young children learn to assemble simple machines by hand. Older children incorporate electricity and other advanced skills. The teenaged EWMW apprentices learn how to design and build components for programs, developing their skills from basic measuring and construction, to the use of power saws and routers, to design for and operation of CNC (computer numerical control) cutting machines.