Raised on a dairy farm in Princeton, New Jersey, Noble saw first hand how the depression hurt families.
Noble briefly served in the army during World War II, but was honorably discharged because of an injury that he received.
Noble was initially a faculty member of the History Department, but later in his career he transferred over to the American Studies Program.
The University of Minnesota began annually presenting the David Noble Lecture Series at the Minnesota History Museum in Saint Paul in the spring of 1996.
[3] He often mentioned to his students that one of his claims to fame was that he “delivered milk to Einstein’s house when he was a boy.” Noble had his phone tapped by Army Intelligence and the FBI during the Vietnam War.