It's November 1928 in Philadelphia, and a box arrives at the doors of a science museum

called the Franklin Institute.

It's a donation from the estate of a wealthy local lawyer.

And what they find inside is in a pretty sad state.

It's a jumble of gears and metal pieces and levers.

There's tattered cloth.

The whole thing is really damaged, this broken down machine.

But the machine has a face.

The face of a little boy and little human hands too molded to hold a pen.

And the people at the Franklin Institute think, what is this thing?

Where did it come from?

And they fix him up as best as they can.

They set up a little pen in his hand, and they wind him up.

And as if this life-like figure could hear their questions, it writes very carefully,

in French.

The automaton of My Are Day.

I'm Dylan Therese, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible,

and wondrous places.

Today, we are telling you the story of an amazing automaton, a mechanical boy machine made

in the days before electronics and computers.

It dazzled audiences.

It then was lost to history, only to be rediscovered by surprise.

...