Doctor Wood. Modern Wizard of the Laboratory

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American small boys love to invent and make things — gadgets, smells, kites, explosions, slingshots, little engines, and bean shooters. They also love to play outrageous pranks.

The essence of Robert Williams Wood is that he is a super endowed American small boy — who has never grown up. The same was true of Mark Twain both as a person and as projected in the personalities of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. The part played by environment in the development of these two American small boys (one living and one dead) who stand and will continue to stand as giants in their totally different fields runs curiously parallel. Both were supplied by fate, to test their wits and strength in early childhood, with mighty and gigantic “toys”.

In Mark Twain’s case, it was the rolling Mississippi with its rafts, floods, and steamboats, runaway slaves, robbers’ caves… you know…

In Robert Wood’s case, it was the roaring, giant Sturtevant Blower Works with its power plant, hydraulic rams, chemical vats, blast furnaces, engines, tools, and machinery, which you shall presently see.

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