"Rube Goldberg [1883-1970] lived through a time of rapid technological, social, and political change. He survived the San Francisco earthquake, World War I, Prohibition, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. He witnessed the introduction and widespread use of telephones, cameras, automobiles, airplanes, movies, radio, and television..." The Art of Rube Goldberg is a fun book about the inventor and cartoonist's long
and prolific career with essays by several authors chosen by his
granddaughter Jennifer George. "Simple Way to Get Fresh Orange Juice
Upon Awakening" is the funny interactive cartoon on the cover.
Goldberg knew he was an artist from a young age, but it took him a few years to believe in his own talents enough to go against his fathers wishes. After graduating from the College of Mining Engineering at the University of California and making maps of sewer and water systems for the city of San Francisco, he quit his job for a cartooning position at one third of the pay.
Goldberg drew sports cartoons for the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Bulletin before his imagination was allowed to really blossom at the New York Evening Mail. His cartoons soon guaranteed huge newspaper sales and within a decade he was famous nationwide and handsomely paid for such strips as Boob McNutt, Mike & Ike-They Look Alike, I Never Thought of That, Things Ain't What They Used to Be, The Weekly Meeting of the Tuesday's Ladies' Club, Lala Palooza, They All Come Back for More, and Give a Guy a Chance. In the strip Foolish Questions and the tiny fun gag in the corner of his daily strips, Benny Sent Me, Goldberg involved his readers by drawing ideas they sent in. He drew serious political cartoons, wrote songs, screenplays, essays and fiction stories, made animated movies and did advertisements for companies like Berkeley Blades, Chevrolet, and Pepsi-Cola. Most famous for his invention cartoons in which an ordinary task was achieved through extraordinary means, he created a new one every two weeks for twenty years! While the game Mouse Trap was obviously inspired by his invention cartoons, it was not designed by or credited to Goldberg, and he eventually came out with his own more humorous 3d games. His name, Rube Goldberg, became an adjective in 1966 when Random House added it to their dictionary with the meaning "having a fantastically complicated, improvised appearance; deviously complex and impractical."
