Charles A. (Charles Albert) King

Charles A. King, listed in library catalogs as Charles Albert King and born in 1865, wrote a small but influential group of woodworking textbooks in the early 1900s. His best-known books include Elements of Woodwork, Constructive Carpentry, Inside Finishing, and Handbook in Woodwork and Carpentry.

The title pages of his books identify him as director of manual training at Eastern High School in Bay City, Michigan. That background shows in his writing: instead of treating carpentry as a loose collection of tricks, he organized it into lessons meant for classrooms, trade preparation, and teacher training.

Today, King is remembered mainly through digitized editions in projects such as Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive, and major library catalogs. Even in brief, straightforward prose, his books capture a moment when woodworking was becoming a formal part of modern industrial and school education.