Construction set:Tinkertoy

Build your own power saw, lathe, airplane, or printing press! Along with diagrams for building each of those machines, this 1942 Tinkertoy set included an electric motor so boys could create real, functioning, mechanical "tools." Inspired by watching children create myriad abstract shapes with sticks, pencils, and old spools of thread, in the early 1910s Charles Pajeau and partner Robert Petit created the "Thousand Wonder Toy." The toy featured wooden wheels that could be connected with sticks inserted in holes set around the perimeter of each wheel. The pair named their Evanston, Illinois, company the "Toy Tinkers," and their invention became known as "Tinker Toys."

The early years of the 20th century saw the creation of a spate of construction toys. Between 1902 and 1914, the toy industry introduced all the popular building toys that would define American middle-class boyhood until the 1960s: Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, and Erector Sets. Meanwhile, toy stores began devoting more and more space to increasingly complex mechanical toys. Promoting neither fantasy nor the development of physical skills, the toys introduced boys to the masculine world of engineering. While the original Tinkertoys were originally marketed for younger boys, manufacturers reached for the older budding engineer by adding an electrical motor to some sets after 1919.