Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday, yadda yadda yadda. And yes, I am a Taurus, which explains a lot, not that yours truly believes in astrology. Of course.
The Bristol Taurus, incidentally, was developed in the mid-1930s by Bristol Aeroplane Company Limited. This British radial air cooled aircraft engine was compact, light and quite powerful but may originally not have been as reliable as one would have liked. Busy as it was with other, more powerful engines, Bristol Aeroplane did not fully develop the Taurus. It went out of production (well?) before the end of the Second World War, and…
What is it, my reading friend? You did not join our band of merry humans this week to hear (read?) about engines? Toys, you say? Indeed, you are right.
Educational toys designed to spark the interest of young hom*o sapiens, primarily boys as we all know, and long live patriarchy, in all sorts of technological and scientific things and ideas, go way, way back. You will remember that, in January 2019, you and I learned all there was / is to know about the Kosmos Spielcomputer Logikus, a West German electro-mechanical calculator, and not a computer at all, put on the market by Franckh’sche Verlagshandlung W. Keller und Company, a publishing house and maker of educational toys known today, in 2020, as Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung und Company Kommanditgesellschaft.
Now please give me a moment to catch my breath. That was quite a mouthful.
One could argue that the story of the item at the heart of this week’s issue of our blog / bulletin / thingee, the Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab, began in February 1884 with the birth, in the United States, of Alfred Carlton Gilbert. I know, I know, we want to talk (read?) about cool stuff, or hot stuff giving the presence of uranium, but people always get in the way. If it was not for hom*o sapiens, the Earth would be a paradise, you know. Dodos would still go down century old pathways on the island of Mauritius, passenger / wild pigeons would still blacken the skies of North America and countless species would not be on the verge of extinction. And bees would not be in trouble. Mind you, the climate of the Earth would not be spiralling out of control either.
Sorry. Sorry. Climate change is not real and, if it is, the trees are to blame anyway, and dark forces, like “scientists,” tree huggers, vegans, etc., are conspiring to destabilise the divinely ordained economy of the Western world. Very bad. Lock them up! But back to our story.
Before we get there, please note that the Québec French word for meat pie, tourtière, is not derived from the (Québec?) French name of the passenger pigeon, which is tourte voyageuse. Nay, it is not. This word derived / derives from the word tourtière, which is a round pie pan / dish used to bake tourtes, which are meat or fruit pies.
Now, why was the passenger pigeon called tourte in French?
This was not a rhetorical question. Yours truly expects some sort of answer… Nothing? Sigh. Let’s move on.
Unlike the great majority of young Americans of his generation, especially female ones, Gilbert attended university. Would you believe that he paid for his bachelor’s degree in sports medicine by working as a magician?
During the 1900s, this accomplished amateur athlete set 2 world records for pole vaulting and tied for gold at the Games of the IV Olympiad, in other words the 1908 summer Olympic Games, which were held in London, in jolly olde England.
I wonder if Howard Joel Wolowitz, one of the main characters of the American television series The Big Bang Theory, mentioned in a December 2019 of our blog / bulletin / thingee, got paid when he performed his magic tricks in front of children, but I digress.
You may not be surprised to hear (read?) that Gilbert chose not to pursue a medical career. In 1907, he co-founded Mysto Manufacturing Company to produce magic sets. Said company became A.C. Gilbert Company around 1916.
Inspired by the steel girders used on a railroad he had seen in 1911, Gilbert introduced a world famous construction toy, the Mysto Erector Structural Steel Builder, in 1913. Production soon took off. By the mid 1930s, Mysto Manufacturing / A.C. Gilbert had sold no less than 30 million Erector sets.
Did you know that the Erector by Meccano construction toy still existed as of 2020? Better yet, did you know that this toy was the property of a global toy and children entertainment (PAW Patrol, Air Hogs, etc.) firm based in Toronto, Ontario, Spin Master Limited? But back to our story.
In 1918, the American involvement in the First World War came within a hair’s breadth of destroying Gilbert’s livelihood, and that of other American toy manufacturers. You see, the American government seriously considering banning the production of toys. Gilbert having successfully lobbied against this measure, he became “the man who saved Christmas” in the eyes of many Americans, especially journalists.
With the return of peace, A.C. Gilbert gradually diversified its production. It put out educational toys like chemistry sets and microbiology sets, which included a microscope. The firm also became a major player in the model train industry, in the late 1930s. Sheldon Lee Cooper, another main character of the aforementioned The Big Bang Theory, mentioned in January and November 2019 issues of our you know what, would be very pleased.
You see, Gilbert, the hom*o sapiens, not the firm, had come to believe that toys had a significant role to play in the brainwashing, sorry, sorry, the moulding of young Americans into productive members of society.
By the way, did you know that Gilbert was one of the founding members of Toy Manufacturers of the U.S.A. Incorporated, today’s Toy Association Incorporated, in June 1916? Better yet, he was the founding president of this association.
Saddened by the fact that inventiveness, one of the foundations upon which the prosperity of the United States was based, was all but ignored by the school systems of most if not all states of that country, Gilbert founded the Gilbert Hall of Science in New York City, New York, in 1941. Dare yours truly say that this science and technology museum was / is an ancestor of the Canada Science and Technology Museum of Ottawa, Ontario? Yes, I guess I did dare. Sadly, the Gilbert Hall of Science closed before the opening of this national museum, in 1967, but back to our story.
The 1940s were of course a decade dominated by a conflict, the Second World War, whose consequences can still be felt in 2020. One of these consequences was the introduction and use of nuclear / atomic weapons.
You and I, however old / young we may be, probably cannot understand the impact that nuclear energy, both military and civilian, had on the population of the Earth at the dawn of the Cold War. Nuclear weapons in the hands of a benevolent United States, and no one else, would make war inconceivable. Countless nuclear power plants built in the future would provide electrical power in such amounts that it might as well be free.
And yes, inconceivable was / is one of the favourite words of an evil character of The Princess Bride, a 1987 romantic comedy and cult movie mentioned in a February 2018 and January 2020 issues of our you know what. What can yours truly say, I rather like that movie.
Nuclear energy, say I, had a huge impact on the population of the Earth indeed. Why do you think the bikini was called the bikini, for example?
The name popped up in France, in mid-July 1946, soon after the first of series of American nuclear bomb tests held on tiny islands in the Pacific Ocean. Bikini was the first one to be incinerated, in early-July 1946, after its indigenous population was all but forced out. As other islands suffered the same fate, or were simply obliterated in the first American tests of the new thermonuclear bombs, the local people were shunted from island to island. No one ever asked them if they wanted to move. They certainly were not disturbing anyone.
Isn’t “civilised man,” and I say (type?) man because women tend to be the saner members of our species, a real piece of work? But back to the origins of the use of the word bikini to describe a tiny 2-piece bathing suit.
Early advertising pointed out, in French, that the bikini was “the first an-atomic bomb.” Pretty bad, isn’t it?
Its creator was, you guessed it, a man, a Frenchman to be more precise, Louis Réard, who happened to be an automotive engineer. The bikini was somewhat / hugely controversial when it came out. Many / most people deemed it indecent.
Would you believe that another Frenchman, a fashion and costume designer by the name of Jacques Heim, had created a more demure 2-piece bathing suit in 1932 that he christened… atome?
And now for something completely different. Board games were very popular after the Second World War, and…
May I digress for a minute? Two minutes? If truth be told, yours truly would be very interested in seeing a small, simple and manageable temporary / travelling exhibition (Hello, EP and EG!) on aviation and space board games go on the floor of the world-famous Canada Aviation and Space Museum of Ottawa, a sister / brother institution of the aforementioned Canada Science and Technology Museum.
Would you believe that the first board games devoted to aviation appeared before the First World War? An American game industry giant, McLoughlin Brothers Incorporated, launched a race game in 1897. Game of To The Pole by Air Ship was inspired by the flight to the North Pole launched in July of that same year by the Swedish engineer Salomon August Andrée and his 2 companions, aboard a hydrogen balloon. Soon declared missing, the 3 men perished after a few weeks. McLoughlin Brothers also produced The Air Ship Game around 1904. An updated version arrived in stores around 1912.
In the United Kingdom, around the same time, an unidentified company produced a race game called Aeroplane Race Round the British Empire which included a stop in Ottawa. A second version of this product was released around 1920. I should also mention Jack & Jane in an Aeroplane, a 1914 (?) game by J.W. Spear & Söhne / J.W. Spear & Sons, a German company whose main export customer was the United Kingdom. Indeed, this board game was apparently produced in Bavaria, one of the kingdoms included in the German Empire.
In Australia, National Game Company marketed Around the Commonwealth by Aeroplane around 1911. This race game included a series of stops along the coasts of this vast island continent. A second version, Around the Commonwealth Aeroplane Game, arrived in stores toward the late 1920s.
In Paris, L. Saussine éditeur, a board game specialist, launched at least 3 race games related to aviation before the First World War, Jeu des grands raids, Concours d’aviation and En aéroplane, a superb product which included lead painted pawns in the shape of aeroplanes, but back to our story.
Uranium prospecting was seemingly quite the thing in the United States during the 1950s. One could never have enough uranium. How else could one achieve the mutually assured destruction of the United States and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), not to mention the rest of the planet? Better dead than red – an expression that sounds a lot better in English than in French, or German, or Russian, or…
Would you believe that uranium prospecting was one of the 8 career paths toward happiness, fortune and fame offered to the families and friends who played the very popular board game Careers, launched in 1955 by American game industry giant Parker Brothers Incorporated? Sorry, you already knew that, didn’t you, and back to board games. To American nuclear board games to be more precise.
Still, it would be cool to say that Careers was still being produced in 2020, by the American firm Winning Moves Games Incorporated. There are 6 career paths and uranium prospecting was / is not one of them. I know, I know, back to board games.
Saalfield Publishing Company launched Uranium, a fairly conventional product, at some point in the 1950s.
Gardner Games Company, on the other hand, launched Uranium Rush around 1955. This award winning / educator approved (?!) board game was inspired in part by the procedures put in place by the American government to stake a claim and by the bonuses awarded by said government. The happy family playing Uranium Rush spun a dial which pointed out the spot on the board of the game where Dad or little Timmy would look for uranium. Our budding prospector would then place a battery operated Geiger counter, not a real one of course, I hope, on the spot in question. If said counter lit up and buzzed, there was uranium in them thar hills, which meant that the player got a $ 50 000 bonus. The winner of the game, “just as in real life,” to quote the promotional blurb, was the individual with the most cash / dough / moolah.
Let us lighten up the atmosphere a little, my reading friend. Would you care to read the caption of the photograph yours truly used to initiate this issue of our blog / bulletin / thingee? Yes? Wunderbar.
Stefan Olsen, aged 8, learns the mysteries of atomic energy, by using this small toy atomic laboratory on display at the American toy fair in New York City. Although equipped with a Geiger counter and radioactive ores, this toy is harmless and offers only very peaceful possibilities.
And no, your mind is not playing tricks on you. The toy in question really included radioactive ore samples. What could possibly go wrong? Said toy was the Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab, and here it is, in all its glory, and…
