Rube Goldberg: An American Genius
That appellation has been applied to many, but the work of Rube Goldberg, ’04, seems peculiarly American in nature, especially in conjunction with the intrusion of the machine age into everyday American life at the end of the 19th century.
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Bancroft’s collection of Rube Goldberg papers, received in 1964, includes more than 5,000 original cartoons, correspondence, manuscripts of articles and plays, congratulatory cartoons, and scrapbooks of clipped cartoons relating to his long and fruitful career. (On Nov. 1, 1963, Goldberg wrote Chancellor Strong: “I have literally thousands of original cartoons on hand and am wondering just how many I should send. I do not want to clutter up the Library.”) Reuben Lucius Goldberg was born in San Francisco in 1883, attended John Swett Grammar School, Lowell High School, took art lessons, and declared to his disapproving father, Max, that he was going to be an artist. |
Max Goldberg, who had emigrated to the United States from Prussia before the Civil War, dealt in real estate and was active in Republican politics in San Francisco. He convinced his son to enroll in the University of California School of Mining Engineering, from which Rube graduated in 1904.
Goldberg also found time to create cartoons for the Pelican — the student humor magazine founded in 1903 — and the Blue and Gold yearbook, to which he contributed even after graduation. Thanks to a summer job, Goldberg discovered that he hated mining, and he determined to forsake that glorious career for one of his own choosing. He was soon drawing for the San Francisco Chronicle, at first only on the sports page, but soon Goldberg began producing political as well as humorous cartoons. Still, his assignments there and later at the Bulletin did not give him enough scope, and he eventually succumbed to the lure of New York.
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Rube Goldberg circa 1910 |
By the end of 1907 he had landed a job at the New York Evening Mail and was coming into his own. In October 1908 his first big successful cartoon series was born: Foolish Questions. By 1910 he had drawn 450 cartoons in this series and published a book with that title.
Now you know how to cut your own hair
Friday, March 10, 1922.
Boobs Abroad in 191: It's hard to break into Paris; but it's
almost impossible to get out. Tuesday, March 11, 1919.
Goldberg’s fascination with machinery (his education in engineering was not entirely in vain) led to his best known series — his inventions — and to “Rube Goldberg” becoming a household word. He was the first living person to have his name become an entry in the dictionary!
Fifty-Fifty |
His inventions, dating back to 1914, were elaborate mechanical devices to help with those small daily tasks ignored by academics and industry. Pencil sharpeners, screen door closers, dishwashers, typewriter erasers, corkscrews, humane mousecatchers — all attracted Goldberg’s attention. His assemblages of improbable devices appealed to the popular imagination. People could immediately see that these intricately designed solutions to some of the trials and tribulations of everyday life would work, although it was easy to overlook the uncertainty posed by burning candles, frightened rabbits and other cogs in the Goldberg wheel which might not obey the laws of nature in a predictable fashion, or certainly not quickly enough for the device to work immediately. Between 1914 and 1935 Goldberg churned out one or two of these elaborate inventions every week. |
In the early 1940s he started doing political cartoons for the New York Sun, which demanded an entirely new style. Gone were the intricate drawings that people could dwell on, savoring every curlicue and penstroke. The political cartoon demanded immediate recognition and appreciation of its message.
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While Goldberg’s political cartoons were successful — indeed many of them became classics — they do not represent his best work, for several reasons. His heart lay with pen and ink, not with fat grease pencils; the format did not allow for second thoughts and side panels of commentary; he did not adapt to the negativism of the political cartoon; and there was no place for his own prose, which had always been part of his humor.
However little personal pleasure Goldberg reaped from his political cartoons, they brought him at least one very tangible success: the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for his cartoon, “Peace Today,” which occasioned numerous cartoon congratulations from his colleagues. In 1959 he received the Silver Lady award from the famous New York luncheon group, the Banshees, given annually to a newspaper writer or artist.
Goldberg transferred to William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal in 1950, where he continued his political cartoons until the age of 81, in 1964. He produced nine books in the course of his career and even turned to sculpture toward the end of his life. He died in 1970.
An invention for opening the garage door without getting out of the car.
June 11, 1928.
William Roberts is the University Archivist.
Volume 113
Fall 1998
Table of Contents
"Sinners & Pilgrims" Colonel Denny’s Journal and Photo Album
From the Director: Students in Bancroft?
Ovid’s Metamorphoses Metamorphosed
Bonnie Hardwick Follows Her Passions
Rube Goldberg: An American Genius
William P. Barlow, Jr.—A Friend Indeed
Plumbing the Depths of the Spring Valley Water Company
Basketball? At Bancroft? The Oral History of Pete Newell
Jean Stone Honored at Annual Meeting
New Prize for Undergraduate Book Collecting
