Jul 8, 2026 · 43 min · 12 segments
*They were approved, tested, wrapped, and put under Christmas trees.* In this episode, we examine the dangerous, baffling, and occasionally radioactive history of American toys. From a 1950’s…
Thomas GloomHost
The Toy That Came With Actual Uranium Alfred Carlton Gilbert was one of the most successful toy makers in American history.
He was so influential during World War I that he talked the U.S. Council of National Defense out of banning toy purchases over Christmas, which is why people sometimes call him the man who saved Christmas.
He believed deeply in educational toys, in toys that pointed children toward science and engineering, in toys that made the future feel exciting.
The newspapers were full of atomic energy, atomic medicine, atomic agriculture, atomic this and atomic that.
The atom was simultaneously the most terrifying thing in the world and the most thrilling symbol of American scientific progress.
What was in the box? The Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab was released in 1950 and priced at $49.50, which is roughly equivalent to $650 today.
For that price, a child received four glass jars containing four types of uranium ore samples, autonite, turbanite, Uraninite and Carnotite, all sourced from the Colorado Plateau.
A Wilson cloud chamber, which allowed the user to actually see the tracks of particles moving through super-saturated air.
A 60-page instruction manual, a comic book introduction to atomic energy written with the help of General Leslie Groves, who had directed The Manhattan Project.
a government booklet called Prospecting for Uranium, which was a real document jointly published by the Atomic Energy Commission and the U.S. Geological Survey.
And a note that if the child found a viable uranium deposit, the government would pay a bonus of up to $10,000 in The suggested activities included watching alpha particles travel through the cloud chamber at approximately 12,000 miles per second and, as mentioned, hide-and-seek with the gamma-ray source.
The manual advised users not to break the seals on the ore sample jars, since the ore tended to flake and crumble.
The reasoning was that loose ore would raise the background radiation level and invalidate your experimental results.
Gilbert stated publicly that all materials had been certified safe by Oak Ridge Laboratories.
The Toy That Came With Actual Uranium Alfred Carlton Gilbert was one of the most successful toy makers in American history.
He was so influential during World War I that he talked the U.S. Council of National Defense out of banning toy purchases over Christmas, which is why people sometimes call him the man who saved Christmas.
He believed deeply in educational toys, in toys that pointed children toward science and engineering, in toys that made the future feel exciting.
The newspapers were full of atomic energy, atomic medicine, atomic agriculture, atomic this and atomic that.
The atom was simultaneously the most terrifying thing in the world and the most thrilling symbol of American scientific progress.
What was in the box? The Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab was released in 1950 and priced at $49.50, which is roughly equivalent to $650 today.
For that price, a child received four glass jars containing four types of uranium ore samples, autonite, turbanite, Uraninite and Carnotite, all sourced from the Colorado Plateau.
A Wilson cloud chamber, which allowed the user to actually see the tracks of particles moving through super-saturated air.
A 60-page instruction manual, a comic book introduction to atomic energy written with the help of General Leslie Groves, who had directed The Manhattan Project.
a government booklet called Prospecting for Uranium, which was a real document jointly published by the Atomic Energy Commission and the U.S. Geological Survey.
And a note that if the child found a viable uranium deposit, the government would pay a bonus of up to $10,000 in The suggested activities included watching alpha particles travel through the cloud chamber at approximately 12,000 miles per second and, as mentioned, hide-and-seek with the gamma-ray source.
The manual advised users not to break the seals on the ore sample jars, since the ore tended to flake and crumble.
The reasoning was that loose ore would raise the background radiation level and invalidate your experimental results.
Gilbert stated publicly that all materials had been certified safe by Oak Ridge Laboratories.
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