Editing Erector Set (section)

==History==
[[File:Erectorsetmcnyjeh.JPG|thumb|Exhibit in the [[Museum of the City of New York]]]]
Erector was first envisioned by [[Alfred Carlton Gilbert|Alfred Carlton Gilbert (A.C. Gilbert)]] in 1911, as he rode the train from New Haven to New York City.{{citation needed|date=May 2019}} This section of track was being converted to electrical power, and Gilbert watched as steel girders were erected to carry the power lines, inspiring him to develop the toy. Gilbert was a skilled magician and manufactured magic tricks and magic sets with his existing company the "Mysto Manufacturing Company". The first Erector set was made there in 1913, called "The Erector / Structural Steel and Electro-Mechanical Builder", and labeled as "Educational, Instructive and Amusing". The toy was first introduced and sold to the public in 1913 at the Toy Fair held at the Broadway Central Hotel in New York City.

Erector quickly became the most popular construction toy in the United States, most likely because it was the only construction set at the time to contain a motor.{{citation needed|date=May 2019}} In 1914, the name was changed to "The Mysto Erector, The Toy That Resembles Structural Steel". In 1916, the company was reorganized and became the A.C. Gilbert Company. The product was renamed "Gilbert Erector, The Toy Like Structural Steel".{{citation needed|date=December 2018}} In 1924, more changes occurred, as the entire Erector system was completely overhauled to include over 70 types of parts. Erector was now called "The New Erector, The World’s Greatest Toy".

Through 1932, Erector was sold in wooden boxes, but 1933 through 1962 the sets would be sold in colorful boxes made of painted steel. Early boxes were colored red, green, or blue; by the 1950s all set boxes were painted red. As the company grew, the area around the Gilbert factory became known as "[[Erector Square]]".<ref name="Watson"/>{{rp|5–8}}

A.C. Gilbert died in 1961,<ref name="Watson"/>{{rp|186}} and the company went into decline, filing for bankruptcy in 1967.<ref name="Watson"/>{{rp|191}} The product was redesigned, adding many plastic parts, but the "clunky" looking models failed to compete with the new, more-realistic scale plastic models coming onto the market. The Gabriel company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, bought the Erector brand name and continued to market the recently redesigned system, though by the mid-1970s most plastic parts had been removed (or replaced by laminated fiberboard, for panels) as a savings measure due to the oil crisis. Sales were slow, and by the 1980s the trademark Erector was acquired by Ideal Toys and then Tyco Toys. In 1990, Meccano bought the Erector brand. The two brands are now sold under the Meccano brand name, with the Erector Set being marketed as "Erector by Meccano", having the same parts as Meccano.

In 2002, a movie based on A.C. Gilbert's life called ''[[The Man Who Saved Christmas]]'' was made for television. It focused on Gilbert's successful appeal to the [[Council of National Defense]] to reject a proposal to ban toy production in favor of wartime related materials during World War I.

An extensive collection of A.C. Gilbert Company scientific and educational children's toys is housed at the Eli Whitney Museum, in Hamden, Connecticut.{{citation needed|date=May 2019}}