Children examine the Automaton during a visit to The Franklin Institute.

About 5 years ago I brought home a curious book called The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick.  Both of my sons had been avid readers and lovers of detailed illustrations since childhood and books like The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base had been favorites for as long as I could remember, so the elaborate charcoal drawings and almost graphic novel design in this new book were intriguing.

The most fascinating moment came with poking around the history behind the story itself.  Although placed within a work of fiction, both Georges Méliès and automatons are quite real. The Franklin Institute of Science and Technology has one in their collection with a history similar to the one in Selznick’s book:

In November of 1928, a truck pulled up to The Franklin Institute science museum in Philadelphia and unloaded the pieces of an interesting, complex, but totally ruined brass machine. Donated by the estate of John Penn Brock, a wealthy Philadelphian, the machine was studied and the museum began to realize the treasure it had been given. Continue reading →