Wittnauer

By Bruce Shawkey

Albert Wittnauer (left) was a Swiss immigrant who arrived in New York City in 1872 at the age of 16, and was employed by his brother-in-law, Eugene Robert, an importer of Swiss watches. He began working for his brother-in-law, Eugene Robert. Albert Wittnauer felt there was a market in America for a lower priced Swiss made watch.[1]

Importing Swiss watches got expensive due to the heavy taxes placed on them so Wittnauer came up with an idea for reducing the expense without losing the quality. The watches could be produced by a subsidiary of their own in Switzerland or they could assemble the watches domestically.

The first Wittnauer's watch line was crafted starting from 1880, but the Wittnauer brand was formally established 1888 when Wittnauer took over Eugene Robert’s company and renamed it the "A. Wittnauer Company." Wittnauer movements were at the beginning generally made for them by Swiss firms (Revue Thommen and others), while in later years Wittnauer used a number of different sources for their movements. The company began as a small family business, catering to the ever-growing world of both scientific and private exploration, which gained them a reputation for use by those who needed reliability: navigators, explorers, and astronomers.

The A. Wittnauer Co. became further involved with the United States Navy for early tests in the budding fields of aviation and navigation. 

In the following years, Wittnauer Co. steadily grew and moved to the New York center. During the 20th century, it also bought a production plant in Puerto Rico. When the last Wittnauer brother died in 1916, their sister Martha Wittnauer, became the first woman watchmaker CEO.

During World War I Wittnauer produced instruments and watches for the early aviation units. The most famous model was probably the Wittnauer AllProof, produced for the first time in 1918, and one of the first all proof models ever used by daredevil Jimmie Mattern in his 1933 attempt to fly around the world in his Vega 5B, "Old Cromwell." On May 20–21, 1932 Amelia Earhart made the first solo flight by a woman across the Atlantic with her Lockheed Vega-5B equipped with Wittnauer instruments.

In 1950 the Swiss company Longines bought Wittnauer, and marketed some very similar lines of watches under both brand names, maintaining separate factories.