Wagon-Making in the United States During the Late 19th Through Mid 20th Centuries by Paul A. Kube

A study of the Gruber Wagon Works at Mt. Pleasant, PA. In 1885, after 25 years of wagon-making experience, Franklin Henry Gruber established the Gruber Wagon Works, which finally closed its doors in 1971.

Wagon-Making in the United States . . . is perhaps the best available description of the tools, materials, technology, and process of wagon-making in the US during the late pre-automotive period. The featured centerpiece of this book is a masters thesis completed in 1968 at Millersville College (now University), Millersville, Pennsylvania, by Paul A. Kube. Titled “A Study of the Gruber Wagon Works at Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania,” this thesis describes the content, structure, and functioning of the Gruber Wagon Works as that business existed in the middle part of the 20th century – a rare late-surviving representative of an industry that had, at one time, been essential to the transportation needs of the agrarian and early industrial national economy. Contributions by Clayton E. Ray and Cathy L. Wegener provide an introduction to the significance of the Kube thesis, a brief history of wagon-making in the United States, a review of the relocation and management of the Gruber Wagon Works as an interpretive center during and after the mid-1970s, a compilation of surviving production records of the Gruber Works, and a biographical sketch of Paul Kube.

Paul A. Kube, Author

Softcover, 258 pages, b/w.