Early Life - Most well known for his cartoons that show overly extensive inventions to complete simple tasks, Rube Goldberg was born in San Francisco on July 4, 1883. Even a young age, he loved drawing and using his creativity. This “nonsense” was discouraged by his parents, who wanted him to be an engineer. Though he was only four, he was already developing his art skills by tracing pictures from the book History of the United States. His first professional drawing lesson was taken when he was 11. He then went to highschool and graduated. Later on, when he was old enough, he did as his parents wished. He promptly enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley. Within a short time, he earned a degree in engineering. At the age of twenty-one, and entered the real world for the first time. …show more content…
He briefly worked for the city by designing sewer systems. He was mainly responsible for sewer system plans all over the city. Had he stayed with this job, he would have made $100 a month, equivalent to $2700 in modern terms. He forwent this opportunity to pursue a job drawing cartoons for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Family Time- On Oct. 17, 1916, Goldberg married Irma Seeman. They had two children, boys, by the names of John and George Goldberg. Because he was Jewish, and Jews were not well accepted during World War II, Rube received a lot of “hate mail” and death threats. For this reason, he changed the surnames of his two sons. Given his large sense of humor, Goldberg changed his son’s names to Thomas George and George George, giving each the other’s name for their last name. In order to keep the family name alive, Goldberg’s grandchildren create RGI(Rube Goldberg