Definition:

A chain reaction–type machine or contraption intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and impractical, overly complicated, way.  [REF]

This individual is the only person whose name is an adjective in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, an honor awarded way back in 1931.  The originally penned description listed below hasn’t changed much since then, a testament to the timelessness of Rube Goldberg’s cartoonish machines.

“A comically involved, complicated invention, laboriously contrived to perform a simple operation.” [REF]

The term “Rube Goldberg Machine” is also officially trademarked by his namesake institute, an organization meant to make sure this iconic comic artist’s legacy lives on.

Deconstruction:

Reuben “Rube” Garret Lucius Goldberg entered the world on July 4th, 1883 in San Francisco, CA.  This patriotic birthday was a foreshadowing of vibrant contributions to American culture that would materialize from this colorful character in the decades to come.

Born to Jewish parents Max and Hannah Goldberg, Reuben was the 3rd of 7 siblings, though only 3, a pair of brothers, and a younger sister, lived to adulthood.  Another tumultuous event growing up involved his family surviving the disastrous 1906 San Francisco earthquakes, navigating collapsing buildings, tainted water, raging fires, and infrastructure destruction.  This challenged upbringing didn’t seem to affect young Rube, who was studious in school, and helpful at home.  

By age 4, the boy was tracing over images in the illustrated children’s stories his parents read at bedtime.  By age 8, Reuben was consuming and recreating any imagery he could find, from newspapers, to magazines, to books.  He was forced to learn penmanship right-handed by Victorian primary school teachers, but continued drawing with his natural left appendage throughout his career. 

Understandably, Rube had a passion for the arts as a teenager, but was dissuaded from this life path by his father, who felt a technical education would be more valuable and lucrative.  At the behest of his dad, the bright lad earned a degree in mining engineering at U.C. Berkley, graduating in 1900, exactly at the turn of the century.

Rube started his career mapping the water and sewer systems around the Bay Area, but soon became bored.  Despite pleas from his father to remain in the engineering realm, Goldberg quit his city works gig, then took a job as an assistant at the San Francisco Chronicle.  Here he toiled for several years, earning just a menial wage, and struggling to create characters that resonated with readers.  However, despite lack of mass appeal, this aspiring artist continued to hone his drawing acumen.

Taking a leap of faith, in 1907 Rube moved east, where he found a job in New York City at the Evening Mail as a cartoonist.  Here, he finally got his big break, and first commercial success, with a single pane comic called “Foolish Questions”, which featured sarcastic rejoinders to absurd queries, in pictorial form, hence the title.  This silly series ran continuously in various publications from 1909 to 1934.

The first branded cartoon character of his own conception was a klutzy bloke dubbed Boob McNutt, along with busty love interest Alice, and pair of numbskull uncles Mike and Ike. Clearly, Rube’s work was laced with sarcasm, all the way down to the monikers he selected.  This offering also had a multi-decade stint in print, cementing him as one of the preeminent comic strip practitioners of the time.

With the benefit of steady income and experiential learning, Goldberg quickly developed a signature style, leveraging his engineering acumen to create fanciful inventions.  These machines were logical and viable on paper, but not realistic to create in the real world, due to usage of random dynamic elements, and lack of adherence to the basic constraints of physics.

The fanciful nature of these cartoons made them very popular with the general public, as they were much easier to interpret than technical drawings and annotated schematics characteristic of traditional engineered machine design during the 2nd Industrial Revolution across America, a period corresponding with the 20th century being ushered in.

While the initial invention image was published in 1914, it took a while for these stylish schematics to catch hold.  Collier’s Weekly magazine was the first broadly distributed outlet for Rube’s novel drawings, spanning from 1929 to 1931.

The immense popularity of these complicated machines led to national syndication, with widespread dissemination occurring across the United States on a biweekly cadence from 1938 to 1941.  Rube Goldberg’s most famous contribution to the society was a running “Weekly Invention” column, where many of his most recognizable gadgets were published.

Rube supplemented his schematic drawings with lots of descriptive text explaining the series of dynamic movements planned for static components, each denoted by the alphabet in sequential order.  Like most colleagues, he used capital letter penmanship characteristic of cartoons during the newspaper era.

Basic home tasks, challenges at work, interacting with other people, and sleep aides were all common themes in Goldberg’s pieces.  Many of the topics addressed in these comedic sketches are as relevant to society today as they were nearly a century ago, when his publications were at the height of popularity.

Shapely women were another recurring theme in Goldberg’s works; such suggestive imagery was commonplace in his heyday.  Also prevalent are animals, often used to perform a key element in the curated sequence of events, thereby further adding to the absurdity of the entire scheme.

As with many cartoonists of this era, Rube invented amusingly named characters to incorporate into his work.  Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts was conceived as an alter ego to showcase these machinery machinations, also harkening back to a particularly absurd instructor remembered from college.  Another stroke of genius for Goldberg in getting his content to resonate with the general public.

Satirical inventions were a personifying element of the roaring 20’s in America.  This was a period when society became fascinated with mechanistic products, not just in ugly physical form, but also in idealized conception.  The manufacturing output afforded by assembly line factories resulted in many new items appearing in consumers’ homes: from canned good to coffee makers, radios and refrigerators, slick synthetic fabrics for wonderous washing machines.

Folks became intrigued, not just with what this new equipment could do, but the underlying hidden mechanisms enabling the unique functionality.  Enter artists like Rube Goldberg, who condensed complex mechanical devices into stylized caricatures.  Just the technical simplicity the general public demanded, and could handle.  Nobody cared if a few liberties were taken with regards to assembly tolerances, material selection, energy usage, or even feasibility in 3-dimensional space, for that matter.

Granted, Mr. Goldberg’s inventions weren’t completely absurd.  Considering his engineering degree, propensity to research patents, and concise step-by-step descriptions, these device drawings were just detailed enough to be viable.  And Rube definitely put in the work, with journal entries suggesting he spent up to 30 hours conceiving each linked sequence of events in his contrived contraptions.

Invention images were just a small portion of this illustrator’s lifetime portfolio of artistic works.  Goal of these images, in addition to being hilarious, was to contemplate the functionality of mechanical processes and the way humans use such technologies.  Goldberg created over 50k cartoons during his lengthy career, many of which have yet to be formally digitized and published. 

A true jack-of-all-trades, Rube Goldberg participated in nearly every conceivable form of public entertainment: Vaudeville fortune teller, playwriting, stand-up comedian, short story author, silent movie skits, magazine editor, all in addition to his diligent drawing by day job.

By the start of the 1920’s, this artsy polymath was making over $100,000 annually through various royalty interests, a substantial sum at the time.  Ironically, his father Max, who originally shunned his son’s efforts as an artist, became Rube’s agent and biggest advocate.

Rube’s career as a cartoonist proved quite lucrative.  He ended up purchasing a fancy townhouse on West 75th St. in Manhattan, where he started and grew a family of his own.  Marrying his wife Irma in 1916, they produced a pair of boys.  The couple was rich enough to afford many helpful perks: nanny, housekeeper, cleaner, and cook.

The Goldberg’s financial affluence and elevated social status left them with an impressive invitation list of party guests.  They hosted many of the biggest names in entertainment at their swanky pad, including Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx, the recognizable Three Stooges, and numerous Ziegfeld Follies Girls.

Due to Rube Goldberg’s analytical mind, the formally educated engineer became obsessed with the burgeoning automobile industry in his prime.  He was one of the first people in New York City to owe a vehicle; in 1910 there was estimated to be only a dozen such mechanized machines on Manhattan, when Rube acquired his massive Minerva, along with the chauffer necessary to operate this unruly beast.

Rube’s life and wealth progressed in parallel with advancements in self-propelled transport across America.  His final rig was an expensive, imported, diesel Mercedes.  While cars became increasingly common and complex over this era, it didn’t make them any more reliable, thus this mode of travel was a recurring theme in his cartoons.

Vehicles were just one of Goldberg’s many vices.  Rube was addicted to Cuban cigars, despite this product being banned in the US, as a result of his honeymoon to this country.  He also had access to booze during Prohibition; financial resources and local government connections can enable acquisition of anything in “The City That Never Sleeps”.  Then, there was his fascination with whipped cream, which he was rumored to put on any type of food, dessert or otherwise.

In addition to the luxurious Manhattan pad, the Goldberg’s owned a modest vacation home in Asharoken on the Long Island Sound.  He spent a significant portion of his time later in life there, creating sculptures using wet clay and shaping tools.  Occasionally pieces were finished and went into the kiln, but this pursuit was a labor of love, rather than a profitable business venture. 

However, life wasn’t perfect for the Goldberg family, as Rube received multiple death threats during the World War II period, stemming from polarizing cartoons and commentary he published.  As a result, he made his sons change their surname from the recognizable Goldberg to the much more discrete George.

Taken in totality, Rube Goldberg’s career resume is extensive and impressive.

He earned a Pulitzer Prize, Gold T-Square, and Banshees’ Silver Lady, all in the political cartooning space, during a short span of time, 1948, 1955, and 1959 respectively.  Mr. Goldberg gave back to the community in his elder years, becoming the first president of the National Cartoonist Society, and creating the namesake Reuben Award, which honors the top American cartoonist annually.

His artwork has graced numerous famous galleries including the NYC’s MoMA, the Smithsonian, MoPC in Seattle, and the Contemporary Jewish Museum in his birth city of San Francisco, both during life and after death.  Rube Goldberg passed away on December 7th, 1970, the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing.  As a result, both his origin and exit were intimately tied to key events in American history.

This innovative illustrator’s passion lives on vicariously through the Rube Goldberg Institute.  This namesake operation runs all sorts of contests for students, ranging from creative hand drawing to schematic technical design to physical structure assembly.

Keeping up with modern technology, children’s challenges are now also run on the computer, using Minecraft, Unreal Engine programing, and online video submissions.  There’s also a TV show, social media hashtag, and several tribute displays worldwide dedicated to Rube’s memory.

Rube Goldberg’s name has been searched or referenced on the web over 1 billion times, making this individual a true pop culture icon, whose legacy lives on well beyond his physical passing.  His contributions are interspersed throughout the entertainment industry.  

Rube Goldberg style machines are prevalent in many elements of videography: Pee-wee Herman, The Goonies, Sesame Street, and Back to the Future.  Children’s games Dominos, Mouse Trap, and Legos all have dynamic movement elements allowing complex sequences to be aligned in order.  The British claymation show Wallace and Gromit uses similar trivial contraptions, but these are inspired by English cartoonist W. Heath Robinson, whose career timeline closely mimicked Goldberg’s.

Jimmy Kimmel described a Rube Goldberg Machine as “an intentionally delightful waste of time and energy.”

Another interesting historical nugget is that Goldberg wrote a Hollywood movie script dubbed “Soup to Nuts” in 1930, which was the inspirational start for the immensely popular “Three Stooges” franchise.  Apparently, all that partying paid off.

In recent times, clever folks have turned many of Rube’s seemingly impossible ideas into functional physical operations, leveraging modern technology and equipment.  Electronic timing sensors and controllable servo motors have rendered formerly impossible sequences of tasks viable.

However, the spirit of simplicity espoused by Goldberg’s cartoons has also been maintained, via elementary school contests with students leveraging just basic materials.

Rube Goldberg machine execution has gone viral across the country, and the globe, enabled by cellphone filming and online posting.  Rube is a key testament to the recent educational transition from a STEM to a STEAM curriculum.  Artistic presentation is a critical element of the modern, visually-stimulative, world.

Tangentially related to Rube Goldberg’s paper creations are real-world, 3-dimensional, installations like kinetic art pieces and perpetual motion machines.  There’s no other cartoon collection that’s transitioned so seamlessly from the newspaper print realm to the physical replication realm over time. 

Human’s crave stupid simplicity, contrived complexity, and funny functionality.  Rube Goldberg provided this trio of disparate elements in spades, with just a pen and paper, plus a lively mind.

Details:

• Overview of Rube Goldberg and his imaginary machines.  [REF]

• Multipage background going through Goldberg’s journey as a comedy strip artist.  [REF]

• Summary of Rube’s life as described by his granddaughter, with lots of interesting familial anecdotes.  [REF]

• Tying Rube Goldberg’s inventions into the broader concept of American ingenuity.  [REF]

• Downloads of Mr. Goldberg’s Boob McNutt cartoon strip.  [REF]

• Absurdly complex Rube Goldberg machine music video created by the rock band OK Go.  [REF]

• Large gallery of high-resolution Goldberg invention cartoons.  [REF]