Rube Goldberg

Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg, born July 4, 1883, in San Francisco, California, was a cartoonist, engineer, and inventor whose name became shorthand for absurdly complex contraptions. After earning an engineering degree from the University of California, Berkeley, he worked briefly as a city engineer before joining the San Francisco Chronicle as a sports cartoonist. He is best known for his wildly popular cartoons depicting elaborate machines that performed simple tasks through convoluted chains of cause and effect—inventions that gave rise to the term "Rube Goldberg machines." His signature style blended meticulous mechanical detail with deadpan humor, and he collaborated with editors and writers at publications including *The Saturday Evening Post*, *Comic Monthly*, and *Modern Mechanics and Inventions*. Goldberg co-created the strip *Boob McNutt* and the long-running *Mike and Ike (They Look Alike)*. He was a founding member and first president of the National Cartoonists Society, which named its annual Reuben Award after him—an honor he himself received in 1967. He won the Pulitzer Prize for political cartooning in 1948, the NCS Gold T-Square Award in 1955, and the Banshees' Silver Lady Award in 1959. His legacy endures through international Rube Goldberg Machine Contests. He died December 7, 1970, in New York City.