Bill Brown has a tiny indentation near the nail of his right index finger. It’s not very noticeable, but Brown won’t ever forget it’s there. It’s the indelible stamp of the plug-in 110-volt motor that ...

Introduced in 1913 by A.C. Gilbert, Erector sets allowed children to build working models of everything from bridges to locomotives using metal beams, gears, and motors. Dubbed “the toy that builds ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. A.C. Gilbert, born and raised in Salem, invented the Erector Set. Here he is surrounded by examples of the construction toy. A.C.

HAMDEN >> Deep in your basement, or perhaps in the boxes up in the attic, maybe, just maybe you have a miniature steel girder, a flat nut or other metal pieces from a long-ago beloved Erector Set.

THE MAN WHO CHANGED HOW BOYS AND TOYS WERE MADE By Bruce Watson Viking. 216 pp. $24.95 The title of Bruce Watson's strange little biography of Alfred C. Gilbert may seem hyperbolic, but it is entirely ...