Rube Goldberg
| Rube Goldberg | |
|---|---|
In 1916
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| Born |
Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg July 4, 1883 San Francisco, California, United States |
| Died | December 7, 1970 (aged 87) New York City, U.S. |
| Resting place | Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York |
| Occupation | Engineer, sculptor, news reporter, cartoonist |
| Known for | Rube Goldberg machines |
Reuben Garrett Lucius "Rube" Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970) was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor.
Goldberg is best known for a series of popular cartoons depicting complicated gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways, giving rise to the term Rube Goldberg machines for any similar gadget or process. Goldberg received many honors in his lifetime, including a Pulitzer Prize for his political cartooning in 1948 and the Banshees' Silver Lady Award in 1959.
Goldberg was a founding member and the first president of the National Cartoonists Society, and he is the namesake of the Reuben Award, which the organization awards to the Cartoonist of the Year. He is the inspiration for various international competitions, known as Rube Goldberg Machine Contests, which challenge participants to make a complicated machine to perform a simple task.
Goldberg was born July 4, 1883, in San Francisco, California, to Jewish parents Max and Hannah (Cohen) Goldberg. He was the third of seven children, three of whom died as children (older brother Garrett, younger brother Walter, and younger sister Lillian also survived).
Goldberg began tracing illustrations when he was four years old, and first took professional drawing lessons when he was eleven.
Goldberg married Irma Seeman on October 17, 1916. They lived at 98 Central Park West in New York City and had two sons named Thomas and George.
During World War II Goldberg's sons changed their surname, at Goldberg's insistence, because of the amount of hatred towards him stemming from the political nature of his cartoons. Thomas chose the surname of George for his brother, and George, wanting to keep a sense of family cohesiveness, adopted the same surname. Thomas and George's children now run a company called RGI (Rube Goldberg Incorporated) to maintain the Goldberg name. John George (Thomas's son) is assisted by his cousin Jennifer George (George's daughter) and John's son Joshua George to keep the family name alive.
Goldberg's father was a San Francisco police and fire commissioner, who encouraged the young Reuben to pursue a career in engineering. Rube graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1904 with a degree in Engineering and was hired by the city of San Francisco as an engineer for the Water and Sewers Department. After six months he resigned his position with the city to join the San Francisco Chronicle where he became a sports cartoonist. The following year, he took a job with the San Francisco Bulletin, where he remained until he moved to New York City in 1907, finding employment as a cartoonist with the New York Evening Mail.
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