Herbert Watman Papers
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Biographical / Historical
Herbert Watman was born in the Bronx, NY, on June 12th, 1921. He graduated from James Monroe High School in 1937. At a young age he held various jobs up until he joined the U.S. Air Force during WWII. He served in the Asia Pacific, first deployed to Australia and then serving predominately in the Philippines from 1942-1945. He received his BS in Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Brooklyn in 1956. He was the first in his family to go to college as a first generation American. His parents had immigrated from Russia during the turn of the century. He got a job at the Grumman Corporation in 1956 and moved to Queens, NY. He married his wife, Esther, in 1957. In the following years they had a son, Brian, and a daughter, Gail. He returned to Polytechnic to achieve his MS in Aeronautics in 1962. He and other engineers were subcontracted to North American Rockwell in California, briefly in 1973, to work on the Space Shuttle. He worked on the design of the wings for the shuttle. He was one of the first to develop a computer program that provided a zoom feature, making it helpful in engineering while using the computer. In his later years at Grumman his specialty gravitated towards designing computer programs. He won various innovation awards such as the Project Sterling Award in 1979 for a computer program used to analyze other computer programs. He also won awards for excellence and cost savings for the company. He worked on the F-14 Tomcat and other fighter planes that proved to be huge successes in the industry. He was a member of the AIAA.
In addition to his native English, he spoke Yiddish, German, as well as studying Hebrew and Latin. He was an early supporter of human rights. He gave to many charities and was formally recognized for contributing to building the National Museum of the US army. He was very engaged in his community as a co-op board member, his temple, as well as the Jewish War Veterans Organization.
Herbert Watman passed on June 25th, 2015, one year after his wife Esther had passed.
Arrangement
This collection is housed in four letter sized document boxes and is arranged into three series: Series I: Course Notebooks, 1952-1961; Series II: Course Assignments and Exams, 1954-1961; Series III: Other Course Materials, 1955-1970. Materials were grouped together based on content during archival processing.
Scope and Contents
The Herbert Watman Papers contain documents from 1952 to 1970, with the bulk ranging from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s. These documents were assembled by Watman throughout his academic career at the Polytechnic University of Brooklyn. Documents include course materials such as notebooks, assignments, exams, and reprints. The collection is three linear feet, located on bay 43, shelf 3E.
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Conditions Governing Use
Because of the assembled nature of this collection, copyright status varies across the collection. Copyright is assumed to be held by the original creator of individual items in the collection; these items are expected to pass into the public domain 120 years after their creation. Repository is not authorized to grant permission to publish or reproduce materials from this collection.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Herbert Watman Papers; RG 059; box number; folder number or item identifier; Poly Archives at Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology, New York University.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The collection was donated to the Poly Archives by Herbert Watman's daughter, Gail Watman in October 2023.
