The Erector Set, a metal toy construction set was invented by A.C.
Gilbert in 1911, and patented in 1913. They were manufactured by
the A. C. Gilbert Company in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1913
until its bankruptcy in 1967. The Gabriel company of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania bought the Erector name, and continued to make
the sets into the 1970s and 1980s.
The Erector Set is believed by many to have been the subject
of the first national advertising campaign in America for a toy.
Toy maker Alfred Carlton Gilbert
1922
The eli witney people of hartford got the reason wrong as to the demise of A.C. Gilbert. The internal revenue service was the real cause—inheritance tax!