December 7: Rube Goldberg

Cartoonist Rube Goldberg, whose name became synonymous with unnecessarily complicated processes and gadgets, died at age 87 on this date in 1970. Reuben Lucius Goldberg trained as an engineer and used his engineering knowledge to create “Invention” cartoons, syndicated in many newspapers, which showed wheels, gears, cups, rods, handles, balls, platforms, paddles, animals, arms, and other objects working in conjunction and in sequence to achieve simple tasks like squeezing an orange for juice or wiping one’s chin with a napkin. Goldberg was a founding member of the National Cartoonist Society, which now gives the Reuben Award to the “cartoonist of the year.” He was also a political cartoonist, and a Pulitzer Prize winner who was often featured on radio and television personality during his sixty-year career. To cruise a gallery of his cartoons, click here. To see the Rube Goldberg machine that is the Guinness World Record holder for most steps (it shows the history of evolution), see below.
“Rube Goldberg . . . a comically involved, complicated invention, laboriously contrived to perform a simple operation.” —Webster’s New World Dictionary, 1931