{"id":3549,"date":"2016-01-26T07:23:02","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T12:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/preserving\/?p=3549"},"modified":"2016-01-26T07:23:02","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T12:23:02","slug":"rube-goldbergs-foolish-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/2016\/01\/26\/rube-goldbergs-foolish-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Rube Goldberg’s Foolish Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) is well known for his cartoons of zany\u00a0convoluted contraptions offering\u00a0unnecessary complex\u00a0solutions for carrying out simple tasks. His work becoming so well known in early 20th century that his own name became an\u00a0entry in dictionaries by 1931. The first of his invention series was printed in 1914 and involved an \u201cAutomatic Weight Reducing Machine\u201d. These comical\u00a0inventions appeared once or twice a month in syndicated newspapers and captured the\u00a0public\u2019s interest. Before creating\u00a0this popular\u00a0cartoon genre that eventually became his signature style, he\u00a0created\u00a0a series of popular one panel comics entitled “Foolish Question” in 1908. It\u00a0is estimated that he did a staggering 50,000 cartoons in his lifetime.<\/p>\n

Foolish Questions<\/i> was a long-running newspaper single-panel comic in which people ask ‘foolish’\u00a0questions and are given sarcastic answers. It appeared in the New York Evening Mail and became so\u00a0popular,\u00a0that the\u00a0readers starting sending in their own questions for Goldberg to answer. Goldberg observed a universality of human stupidity with people generally asking dumb or pointless questions when they already knew the answer. After\u00a0gaining a\u00a0popular readership, a\u00a0hardcover compilation of Foolish Questions<\/i>\u00a0was published 1909, being\u00a0one of the very first cartoon collections published in America.<\/p>\n

This compilation of Goldberg’s foolish question comic was a crowd-pleaser, but it was not appreciated by all. There were surprising number of naysayers, partially taking aim\u00a0at Goldberg’s work but also towards comics as an artform.<\/p>\n

“R. <\/span>L. Goldberg\u2019s illustrated “Foolish Questions\u201d <\/span>may have been amusing when issued singly in the daily press, but thrust upon one en masse they become nauseating. Which reminds us why do American humorists, alleged an otherwise, adhere to one wretched theme until it is worn to a frazzle? Is it a test of endurance\u2014for the public?” \u00a0The Bellman 1909<\/em><\/p>\n

“Some of them are very funny, but a long array palls on the mind. The illustrations are funny because they are so atrociously drawn by a man who could not do any better if he tried. Now, that really is not funny at all. It is sad!\u00a0However, this book is bound to sell well because it is drawn and written right to the level of the average intelligence of the great People.” \u00a0Overland Monthly, 1909<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
Description:<\/dt>\n
Goldberg, Rube. Foolish questions. Boston : Small, Maynard, c1909.<\/span><\/dd>\n
Persistent Link:<\/dt>\n
http:\/\/nrs.harvard.edu\/urn-3:FHCL:2173916<\/a><\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
<\/dd>\n
Repository:<\/dt>\n
Widener Library<\/dd>\n
Institution:<\/dt>\n
Harvard University<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) is well known for his cartoons of zany\u00a0convoluted contraptions offering\u00a0unnecessary complex\u00a0solutions for carrying out simple tasks. His work becoming so well known in early 20th century that his own name became an\u00a0entry in dictionaries by 1931. The first of his invention series was printed in 1914 and involved an \u201cAutomatic Weight Reducing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2559,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3549"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3761,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3549\/revisions\/3761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/preserving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}