author
Edward Thatcher
Best known for turning ordinary tin cans into playful, durable handmade projects, this early 20th-century craft writer brought metalworking within reach of everyday makers and schoolchildren. His books have a practical, upbeat spirit that still feels fresh for anyone who likes building things by hand.
1 Audiobook
Making Tin Can Toys
by Edward Thatcher
About the author
Edward Thatcher was a metalworking instructor and craft writer whose work focused on making useful and imaginative objects from simple materials. The title page of Making Tin Can Toys describes him as the “originator of tin can toys” and as an instructor of metal working at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City from 1904 to 1919.
His best-known books include Simple Soldering, Both Hard and Soft from 1910 and Making Tin Can Toys from 1919. In Making Tin Can Toys, he explains that the idea grew from making a homemade toy locomotive for his young son out of discarded cans, then expanding that experiment into a broader method for teaching children how to build sturdy toys with only a few tools.
Some later book-source biographies also describe him as a contributor to Popular Science and a member of the Byrdcliffe Art Colony in Woodstock, New York. Those details appear in modern publisher and Google Books notes, so they are best read as likely but not as firmly documented here as the information drawn directly from his books.