Popular toys often reflect new technologies of their time. From
ways of seeing to building, drawing and powering, some of these
toys inspired young people to pursue careers in design, technology
and science.
A new case in the Art and Industry gallery in the redeveloped
National Museum of Scotland features toys that have helped shape
children’s attitudes to science and technology.
Alongside such classics as Meccano, Lego and Spirograph, the
display includes some more unusual playthings, including an ‘Atomic
Power Station’ model steam engine, made in West Germany in 1965 by
Wilhelm Schröder and Co. for the American and British market.
Why a toy power station?
This is a toy of its time, which reinforces a message of the
positive benefits of nuclear power and the exciting future made
possible through the harnessing of the atom.
Its instruction leaflet offers an extraordinary polemic on the
benefits of atomic power, while acknowledging the recent
‘destructive purposes’ to which atomic power has been used. It
starts:
“My dear friend,
A new technical era has made its appearance – the era of the
atomic age. We are still on the very threshold of that bewildering
and exciting period and you will be fortunate enough to grow into
it. No doubt you will look at all these matters with a rather
dispassionate technically trained mind, contrary to the older
generation and perhaps also to your own parents. They still get a
bitter feeling when they hear the word ‘atom’. For them it is
coupled with the idea of the ‘atomic bomb’, with death and
destruction. The thought of radioactive contamination has become a
real nightmare to many of us. It is no wonder that they lose sight,
under such circumstances, of the actual value of this nearly
inexhaustible source of energy – a source of power on which we may
have to rely in a near future to a still unthought of extent. Not
for destructive purposes, but exclusively for peaceful aims…”
How did the toy work?
Fortunately, no nuclear fission was actually involved. Encased
in a lithographed tinplate structure reminiscent of the late 1950s
nuclear test reactor at Dounreay, in reality the toy is a mini
steam engine, operated by steam heated by an electric element
plugged into the mains.
Where can I see the Atomic Power Station toy?
This steam-driven ‘Atomic Power Station’ is displayed in
the new Technology Toys case in the Art and
Industry gallery, next to a clockwork ‘Sea Wolf atomic
submarine’ toy of 1963 (below).
