David Gottlieb (pinball)

David Gottlieb was born in Milwaukee in May 1900 to Russian Jewish immigrants, served in the First World War and spent two years at the University of Minnesota. On the advice of a childhood friend, and with a loan from him, he moved to Chicago and founded D. Gottlieb & Co. in 1927 with his brother Sol. Baffle Ball in 1931 was the first successful coin-operated pinball machine and sold some fifty thousand at 17.50 dollars; in 1947 the flipper appeared on his company's Humpty Dumpty and every pinball machine since has had one. He was an active member of the Chicago Jewish community and involved in both the West Suburban Temple and the Oak Park Temple, and his charitable work led to the opening of Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in 1961. He is not the David Gottlieb also in this directory, who is an Israeli mathematician.