View Master

William B. Gruber, inventor of the 3D system the View-Master, lived a life as colorful and vibrant as the images he captured in his photos. His biography is a look into the mind of a genius. The events leading up to his kidnapping off the streets of Munich by the Red Army, his rigorous training as a piano builder, and the luck that brought him to America was just the start of his fascinating life. His life was full of ironic twists of fate. His political activities in the 1920’s caught the attention of the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover, which led to a trial for possible espionage. Filming the Pope at the Vatican, or the coronation of England’s Queen Elizabeth, Gruber was always on the move. His greatest achievement was A Stereoscopic Atlas of Human Anatomy, his legacy to science. Gruber truly lived the American Dream. View-Masters are a lasting part of American pop culture.