John E. Gruber, 1936-2018 – Center for Railroad Photography & Art

Tribute

John Edward Gruber, founder of the Center for Railroad Photography & Art, died on October 9, 2018, after struggling briefly with esophageal cancer. His influence on the field of railroad photography is impossible to overstate, from his own paradigm-shifting black-and-white work beginning in the 1960s to his 2018 book that reexamines the lives and photography of Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg. Beyond his own luminous work, Gruber thoughtfully shone a spotlight on other notable photographers while also encouraging young and emerging practitioners. Classic Trains magazine dubbed him a “provocateur of railroad photography” in a 2014 profile by Kevin P. Keefe. There would be no Center without Gruber’s vision and tireless efforts, and all of us here stand always on his shoulders.

Born in 1936 in Chicago, he soon moved with his parents to their native area, settling in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin. There as a youngster he became enthralled with both railroading and journalism, especially the craft of printing. His hometown is little more than forty-five minutes from Madison, and that’s where he went to college, receiving a degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin. He was editor-in-chief of The Daily Cardinal student newspaper in 1957, and he went on to spend thirty-five years with the university’s publications department. He became serious about railroad photography around 1960 and was a dedicated freelancer ever since. Legendary Trains magazine editor David P. Morgan was an early champion of Gruber’s work, and the two eventually became close friends.

Gruber’s numerous books include the aforementioned Beebe & Clegg: Their Enduring Photographic Legacy with John Ryan and Mel Patrick, and the pathbreaking Railroaders: Jack Delano’s Homefront Photography, both published by the Center. Beebe & Clegg debuted in April 2018 and went into a second printing in just four months. Railroaders accompanied a landmark exhibition, conceived by Gruber and Jack Holzhueter and realized in partnership with the Chicago History Museum; the book received an award from the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society (R&LHS) and the exhibition drew nearly half-a-million visitors. (Gruber and Holzhueter had been friends since college days on the Cardinal.)

In 1994, the R&LHS conferred its lifetime achievement award for photography on Gruber. From 1995 to 1999, he was editor of the magazine Vintage Rails and later served as a contributing editor to Classic Trains. Gruber volunteered as an editor for both the R&LHS and for the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, Wisconsin. He chaired Mid-Continent’s photography and art committee, which led him to found the Center in 1997 along with Joel Skornicka and Ralph Pierce. Gruber then served as the Center’s president and the editor of its journal, Railroad Heritage, until 2013, and he remained on its board of directors until his death.

Under Gruber’s leadership, the Center grew to become a nationally significant arts and education nonprofit organization devoted to railroading—the only such institution in the nation. The Center’s programs serve the general public as well as the substantial community of railroad photographers on the North American continent and beyond.

Gruber’s early efforts at the Center included developing an extensive traveling exhibition and publication program focused on railroad workers with funding from the North American Railway Foundation. The Center has continued to prepare and circulate traveling exhibitions, which have appeared in railroad and art museums across the country. Venues include the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University and the Grohmann Museum in Milwaukee; the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento; and Grand Central Terminal in New York City.

To give the Center a publishing platform, Gruber launched Railroad Heritage^® in 2000 and produced its first thirty-one issues. Those included two critically acclaimed special issues, Railroad History in a Nutshell and Railroad Preservation in a Nutshell, both also in collaboration with Holzhueter as well as Scott Lothes. Two Railroad Heritage articles have received the David P. Morgan Article Award from the R&LHS—the top prize for articles published on railroad history in any American publication.

Thanks to an early partnership that Gruber helped forge with the Archives and Special Collections department of Lake Forest College’s Donnelley and Lee Library with the aid of Arthur Miller and later Anne Thomason, the Center has become the nation’s go-to repository for railroad images. Its holdings include the work of several leading photographers and artists, including Wallace W. Abbey, Donald W. Furler, Victor Hand, Ted Rose, and Jim Shaughnessy. Lake Forest College also provides space for the Center’s annual “Conversations” conference, first held in 2003, again with Miller’s assistance. It has grown from a one-day event with sixty attendees to three days and capacity crowds of 180.

In 2013, the Center’s board of directors renamed the annual awards program in Gruber’s honor. He served as a judge each year through 2017 and particularly enjoyed the opportunity to promote creative work by young and aspiring photographers. Any gifts made to the Center in Gruber’s memory will go towards the John E. Gruber Creative Photography Awards Program.

Gruber is survived by his wife of fifty-six years, Bonnie Jean (née Barstow); sister Mary Lee Olson; sons Richard (husband of the former Bonnie Jean Evert) and Timothy; grandchildren Martin and Tamara; three step-grandchildren, Amy, Andrew, and Adam Yanke; four step-great-grandchildren; and five nephews. Gruber enjoyed sharing his love of railroading with his family. Richard is also a photographer and works for the Wisconsin & Southern Railroad, and John most recently accompanied his wife and grandchildren on a cross-country Amtrak trip in July 2018. Bonnie cataloged John’s substantial library of railroad literature and often edited his railroad manuscripts; she, too, had been a Cardinal editor and the two met in its offices.

Mel Patrick, longtime friend and a pathbreaking photographer himself, summarizes the feelings of so many of us at the Center with these words: “John has always been a quiet giant in our field, encouraging the new photographers as well as recognizing those who came before us. Well done, Mr. Gruber; we all stand in your shadow and are thankful for all that you have given us.”

—Scott Lothes, president and executive director

John Gruber, founder of the Center for Railroad Photography & Art. Photograph by Henry A. Koshollek

Memorial Gift for John Gruber

Make a contribution in memory of John Gruber, the Center’s founder. Gifts will go towards the John E. Gruber Creative Photography Awards Program.

John Gruber’s dramatic silhouette photograph of a Duluth & North Eastern steam locomotive served as the Center’s first logo.

Nun at Chicago Union Station by John Gruber
A nun walking through the massive columns outside its waiting room in 1964 gives Chicago Union Station a cathedral-like appearance in one of John Gruber’s most iconic photographs.

Gallery

On a below-zero afternoon at Cloquet, Minnesota, steam from a Duluth & Northeastern locomotive covers the sun. The January 1962 photograph has been a symbol for the Center.

A nun walking through the massive columns outside its waiting room in 1964 gives Chicago Union Station a cathedral-like appearance.

Inside the signal tower at Chicago Union Station in 1964

Conductor Tom Burke smiles as he helps passengers climb aboard the last Milwaukee Road passenger train out of the Madison, Wisconsin depot on April 30, 1971.

After collecting tickets, Tom Burke and Fred Loften talk with passengers on the last scheduled Milwaukee Road train from Madison, Wisconsin, to Chicago on April 30, 1971. The next day, Amtrak assumed responsibility for most of the nation's passenger service, eliminating Madison from its route map.

A westbound Milwaukee Road "Hiawatha" passenger train rolls into the slanting light of a summer afternoon in western Wisconsin circa 1970. Sand mining at this location has completely altered the view and made access off-limits today.

On their final day of operation, Milwaukee Road's eastbound and westbound "Afternoon Hiawatha" passenger trains pass near Wisconsin Dells on January 23, 1970. The photograph reveals an inside view of the westbound's Skytop lounge-observation car "Cedar Rapids," looking out at its sister car "Coon Rapids" on the eastbound. The trains ran daily between Chicago and Minnesota's Twin Cities.

Jim Reidelbach, an operator at Portage, Wisconsin, demonstrates the telegraph key in 1983, the time-honored manner of communicating on the railroad. Although the company used telephones for most business, the Milwaukee Road kept a telegraph line in service along its main line for emergency use through the mid-1980s, far longer than on most railroads. The Chicago & North Western discontinued its telegraph line at Madison in 1967.

A steam-powered Milwaukee Road freight train passes through Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, in the 1950s.

Wayne ''Jake" Jacobs communicates with a radio on June 15, 1982, while his Milwaukee Road train switches cars at a farm supply company west of Prairie du Sac. He worked as a brakeman and later as a conductor from 1946 to 1985.

A few people gathered at Thedford, Nebraska, in August 1969 to observe a time-honored ritual, the passing of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy's night passenger train, one that made most local stops between Billings and Omaha and was in its last month of operation.

Peter Polus (left) of Winona, Minnesota, hired out with the Chicago & North Western on September 20, 1917. Polus (1899-1969) never took the conductor's exam and retired as a passenger trainman when the "Rochester 400" train made its last trip in 1963. The image shows Paul Knutson, a young passenger from Lodi, Wisconsin, climbing on a train in Madison, Wisconsin.

Cynthia Skidmore Lambrecht worked for the Milwaukee Road as a relief station agent from June 1969 through December 1977. The job took her from Mineral Point to Waukesha and from Janesville as far as Ontonagon, Michigan. Gruber took this photo in 1975 as the Sauk City/Prairie du Sac depot began closing down for the day.

Ralph Keppler takes a break to talk with Chet Tanner of Mcfarland in the Milwaukee Road's Madison, Wisconsin office in the 1980s.

Herman Miller (1925-2004) of Mineral Point, Wisconsin, gives hand signals while switching freight cars west of Madison in 1978. Railroaders developed hand signals to communicate across long trains decades before radios were invented. Miller worked for the railroad for thirty-four years before retiring as a conductor in 1982.

Gerald Berg of Milton, Wisconsin, worked for forty-one years in stations from Albany to Woodman. When jobs as clerk-operator began disappearing, he went to the Milwaukee shops. Berg finished his career as a forklift operator in a wheel shop before taking a buyout in 1986. The picture shows him in Madison, Wisconsin, in the 1980s.

Arnold Sturm works for the Milwaukee Road in its office in Portage, Wisconsin, where Canadian Pacific freight trains change crews today. When the photograph was taken in the 1980s, Sturm prepared train orders (instructions written on thin sheets of paper so carbon copies could be made) and operated switches for a junction about one mile away. Sturm, a fourth generation Milwaukee Roader, went to work for the railroad in 1966.

Trains magazine editor David P. Morgan in the cab of Southern Railway steam locomotive no. 4501 in Salisbury, North Carolina, on August 26, 1966.

Richard and Timothy Gruber, sons of photographer John Gruber, peer out the window of a Miwaukee Road passenger train.

The conductor of a Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee train raises the trolley pole.

Passengers buy tickets for a trip on the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee Railroad in 1961

A conductor and ticket agent shake hands in a farewell gesture as the last Chicago & North Western "400" passenger train prepares to head west out of Madison, Wisconsin, in 1963.