We continue our countdown to America 250 with stories of Jewish Americans in the early to mid-20th century and how their work became ingrained in our popular culture. This week, we remember the story of Rube Goldberg and his machines.
Rube Goldberg, born Reuben Goldberg in 1883 in San Francisco, wasn’t a scientist or inventor. Rather, he was a cartoonist and animator who worked across emerging media such as newspapers, films, and comics. As a child, young Rube would trace illustrations, and his only formal lessons came from a local sign painter.
Goldberg first pursued engineering as a career, encouraged by his father, who worked for the Fire and Police Commission of San Francisco. He earned an engineering degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and began working for his hometown’s Water and Sewers Department. After only six months, however, Goldberg resigned and became a cartoonist for a local newspaper. Later, he moved to New York and began illustrating for the New York Evening Mail in 1907.
In 1912, Goldberg created his first “invention cartoons,” featuring overly complicated machines that performed simple tasks through elaborate chain reactions. These cartoons served as a critique of industrialization and the ways it could overcomplicate even the simplest things. His first machine was the “Automatic Weight-Reducing Machine,” in which the subject had to lose weight to escape through a convoluted series of pulleys, balloons, and even a bomb. By the mid-1910s, New York publishers were competing for his work, and he was widely regarded as America’s most popular cartoonist.
Goldberg’s machines and outlandish inventions became the focus of the series he launched in the 1920s, The Inventions of Professor Lucifer G. Butts. In it, the eccentric inventor showcased bizarre contraptions such as the automatic postage-stamp licker, a self-operating napkin, and many more. What made these machines so unique was that they were often built not only from everyday objects and animals, but also from surreal elements like dancing mice or fire-breathing dragons. Creativity and absurdity worked together to solve simple problems in the most complicated ways possible.
In the 1930s, Goldberg’s cartoons began reflecting the rise of fascism in Europe while he continued his syndicated work. In 1945, he advocated for Jewish-Arab unity with a cartoon depicting two railroad tracks running through the desert—one designated for each group. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for his 1947 cartoon “Peace Today,” which depicted a nuclear bomb balanced on the edge of a cliff between total peace and destruction. In 1967, Goldberg even predicted flat-screen televisions in a piece titled The Future of Home Entertainment.
Rube Goldberg and his machines remain a staple of American popular culture. His inventions inspired scenes in films such as Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Wallace and Gromit, and Back to the Future Part III. The 1960s board game Mouse Trap revolved around activating a similar elaborate contraption. Children across the country also build their own machines each year in celebration of Rube Goldberg Day.
Goldberg’s spirit of “it’s so crazy it just might work” continues to inspire creatives today. Even now, there is nothing quite like watching a Rube Goldberg machine in action.
The Fellowship’s countdown to America 250 celebrates the shared values and friendship between the United States and Israel as demonstrated through these stories and partnerships. Show your support by requesting a FREE U.S./Israel flag pin today.
