Gone But Not Forgotten

Illustration of a bald man in profile looking in a mirror with black text underneath on a white background

The illustrator of this button, Rube Goldberg, is synonymous with complicated inventions that perform simple tasks. An engineer and inventor, Goldberg also drew several comic series, including Mike and Ike (They Look Alike), Boob McNutt, and The Weekly Meeting of the Tuesday Women's Club. In the series featuring Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts, Goldberg drew schematics of the comical gadgets by which he came to be known.

Goldberg was a founding member and first president of the National Cartoonists Society, whose Reuben Award for cartoonist of the year is named after him. He received a Pulitzer Prize for his political cartooning in 1948, and in 1995 was honored with a commemorative stamp as part of the "Comic Strip Classics" series from the U.S. Postal Service.

This button was part of a set of 376 known buttons, issued as premiums primarily with Hassan and Tokio cigarettes. They featured cartoons by artists such as as Rube Goldberg, George McManus, Bud Fisher, Hal Hoffman, and others.