William J. J. Gordon was an inventor and psychologist. He is recognized as the creator of a problem solving approach called synectics

Synectics

Synectics is a problem solving methodology that stimulates thought processes of which the subject may be unaware. This method was developed by George M. Prince and William J.J. Gordon, originating in the Arthur D. Little Invention Design Unit in the 1950s. They set up Synectics Inc...

, which he developed while working in the Invention Design Group of Arthur D. Little

Arthur D. Little

Arthur D. Little is an international management consulting firm originally headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and formally incorporated by that name in 1909 by Arthur Dehon Little, an MIT chemist who had discovered acetate. Arthur D. Little pioneered the concept of contracted...

.

Gordon also held numerous United States patents for various products and services, including a rotatable multiple tool support unit (No. 2,743,746 – May 1, 1956), a catamenail device (No. 2,879,769 – March 31, 1959), an impact tool (No. 2,974,651 – March 14, 1961), artificial snow (No. 3,020,811 – February 13, 1962), a dispenser (No. 3,035,299 – May 22, 1962), a boat fender (No. 3,055,335 – September 25, 1962), an apparatus for continuous restaurant counter place mats (No. 3,092,045 – June 4, 1963), a lipstick container (No. 3,737,241 – June 5, 1973), and an animal track teaching method (No. 4,204,705 – May 27, 1980).

Built in 1843 by lexicographer and dictionary author Joseph Emerson Worcester

Joseph Emerson Worcester

Joseph Emerson Worcester was an American lexicographer and chief competitor of Webster's Dictionary in the mid-nineteenth-century. Their rivalry became known as the "dictionary wars". Worcester's dictionaries focused on traditional pronunciation and spelling, unlike Noah Webster's attempts to...

 on what was originally part of the Vassall-Craigie Estate, Gordon’s 7,150-square-foot, 15-room home on Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

 was purchased by London art historian Margaret Koster and her husband, Joseph Koerner

Joseph Koerner

Joseph Leo Koerner is an American art historian. The Thomas Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard, he is best known for his work on German art...

, in 2006.

Gordon attended the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

 in 1937 and 1938, but according to the university archives, did not receive a degree. He was also the youngest son of Nathan H. Gordon

Nathan H. Gordon

Nathan Harry Gordon, motion picture executive, was born in Vilna, Russian Empire , March 15, 1872, the son of a medical practitioner. He attended a college at Vilna, taking the rabbinical course, and came to the United States in 1890...

, the motion picture executive.