This month, Johnson & Johnson launched a new global brand equity campaign  called Johnson & Johnson For All You Love.  The campaign, which includes television commercials and print advertising, reminds people of the positive impact of caring, and celebrates the ways in which people care for loved ones every day and over the course of a lifetime.  Caring is a theme that has grown naturally from what we do, and it’s been a theme of our advertising throughout Johnson & Johnson history.

Caring is a focus that goes back 127 years at Johnson & Johnson.  From our start in 1886 as a company founded by the younger brothers of Civil War veterans to make the first mass produced sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures to help make surgery sterile…to the first commercial First Aid Kits, developed 125 years ago in 1888 to care for injured railroad workers…to BAND-AID^® Brand Adhesive Bandages, invented by a Johnson & Johnson employee in 1920 as a way to care for his wife’s small kitchen injuries, to today’s consumer products, pharmaceutical medicines and medical devices — and through community partners we support across the world — caring remains a central theme of our history from our founding to today.

As readers of this blog know, caring is not a new theme in Johnson & Johnson advertising either.  As we launch our Johnson & Johnson For All You Love campaign, here’s a look back at some of our historical advertising that uses the theme of caring for those you love and for others.

Johnson & Johnson First Aid ad from 1917

Caring was the theme of our First Aid advertising in the Nineteen Teens, as illustrated by this ad from 1917 that ran in the Ladies’ Home Journal.  Called “Things for Mother to do in First Aid,” it showed a mother caring for her young son (who’s holding one of our pioneering Johnson & Johnson First Aid Manuals!) while her daughter looks on.  The left side of the ad shows some basic first aid and bandaging techniques.

RED CROSS® Kidney Plasters ad, from our archives.

Our “Feels Good on the Back” ad for RED CROSS^® Kidney Plasters also illustrated caring – in the pose and body language of the Edwardian era couple pictured in the ad.  The tagline of the ad – Feels Good on the Back – refers to the kidney plaster, but it also refers to the comforting arm placed around the back of the woman in the illustration.  The ad – with its image of caring — struck such a chord with the public that it became a part of popular culture and ran unchanged for a remarkable 30 years.   

1923 BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages ad, from our archives.

Caring was the theme of a 1923 BAND-AID^® Brand Adhesive Bandages ad too.  This very early ad (which would have been displayed in a retail pharmacy) shows the product being used by a parent caring for a child, an image that would become a mainstay of the product’s advertising.

Johnson & Johnson ad from 1949 with painting by Gladys Rockmore Davis.

In the late 1940s, Johnson & Johnson commissioned noted artist Gladys Rockmore Davis to do a series of paintings based on caring for an advertising campaign.  The ads featured children, and they were tremendously popular, leading Johnson & Johnson to produce reprints of the paintings.  It’s said that the Gladys Rockmore Davis ads for Johnson & Johnson were among the earliest instances of a noted artist’s work being used in an advertising campaign.  A graduate of the Arts Institute of Chicago and a member of the famed Art Students League of New York, Davis’ paintings can be found in major collections, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York…and at Johnson & Johnson.

The original painting by Gladys Rockmore Davis that appears in the ad pictured above. From our collection at Johnson & Johnson.

In 2002, in response to a critical shortage of nurses and declining enrollment in nursing schools, Johnson & Johnson launched the Campaign for Nursing’s Future, which was designed to inspire people to consider nursing as a career.  The campaign includes television commercials and print ads that showcase real-life nurses – women and men who make caregiving their careers.   Since 2002 when the campaign launched, nursing schools have reported a doubling in baccalaureate program enrollment, according to data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Inaugurated before the social media age, the Campaign for Nursing’s Future today is on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.  

One of the most popular of the modern Johnson & Johnson ad campaigns focused around caring is the Having a Baby Changes Everything campaign.  These television commercials and print ads feature moms and dads with their babies and young children, and they talk about the positive ways that becoming a parent changes people’s lives.  The message of the ads is that Johnson & Johnson understands how profound a change it is to become a parent, and is there to support the bond between parents and children.  That message of support harks back to the messages of support for parents and families in the Company’s ads for our baby products, first aid products and public health products a century ago.

More recently, our You’re Doing Okay, Mom television commercial continued that message of support.  The ad is narrated by a baby telling his mom what an amazing job she’s doing in caring for him.

With a long history of making products that care for people, it’s only natural that our advertising over the decades has reflected that focus on caring.  With the launch of the Johnson & Johnson For All You Love ads, Johnson & Johnson is continuing a tradition that started almost a century ago.

It’s as iconic and familiar as a Coca-Cola bottle, Levi’s jeans or, well, JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder.  From the Jazz Age to the 1990s, it was in virtually every American household and in many households around the world.  After people finished the product, they kept the package and repurposed it for many other uses….and people still keep and collect them today.  What is it?  A BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tin!

Earle Dickson: he invented a product to help his wife, and it became a global icon. Photo from our archives.

As readers of this blog know, BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages were invented in 1920 by a young employee, cotton buyer Earle Dickson.  He combined two early Johnson & Johnson products to create something new, because he wanted to help his wife by making a pre-made bandage to treat her small kitchen injuries.  Johnson & Johnson put Earle’s invention on the market in 1921.  They were the first product of their kind – and were so new a concept that we had to demonstrate to people how to use them.

Ad from 1921, the year BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages were introduced. From our archives.

The first BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages were packaged in cardboard boxes, but by about 1926, we began packaging them in beautifully decorated tins.

Not only essential, but beautiful. A collection of historical BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandage packaging, from our archives.

From the 1920s to the 1990s, BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tins could be found in medicine cabinets throughout the U.S. and in many parts of the world.   Earle Dickson’s invention had become not only an essential first aid product, but part of pop culture as well.  The product was even the subject of a popular and beloved Little Golden Book for children, Doctor Dan the Bandage Man.

A BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tin: the package with a thousand uses!

Not only was the product iconic, so were the tins it came in.  Once a BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tin was empty, it was repurposed in probably a hundred different ways by every member of the family: holding small nails, screws and other hardware in workshops; storing small objects in kitchens; holding extra buttons and safety pins in sewing rooms; and organizing marbles, baseball cards and tiny toys in children’s rooms.  BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tins were such an integral part of the household that just the sight of the particular tin you grew up with instantly evokes memories of your childhood.

Anyone remember me from their childhoods? A BAND-AID® Brand Plastic Strips tin from the 1970s.

So here’s a quick primer on some of the BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tins that you might see or own:

BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tin from the U.K. from 1927, from our archives.

1920s — square tins:  Before the product was manufactured pre-cut, it had to be cut exactly the way Earle Dickson invented it.  In the 1920s, BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tins were square, and they had illustrated instructions on how to use the product printed on the inside of the lid!

BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tin from the 1930s, from our archives.

1930s:  Perhaps the most beautiful BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tins were made during the 1930s.  Beautifully decorated, with a sliding top, these tins are among the most prized by collectors, and are a personal favorite at Johnson & Johnson.

BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tin from the 1950s, from our archives.

1940s and 1950s:  BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tins were plainer during this era, with a white background and red, black and grey letters.  The packaging switched to cardboard for a few years during World War II, and then went back to the familiar tin with the hinged lid.

BAND-AID® Brand Stars ‘n Strips, from our archives.

BAND-AID® Brand Stars ‘n Strips went on the market in 1956.  Our first mass marketed decorated BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages, they caused a sensation among children, who decorated every available inch of themselves with the product.

One of the most classic of our BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tins — from the mid-1960s. From our archives.

1960s:  One of our most famous and collectible BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tins is from the Mad Men era of the mid-1960s.  It has an illustration of a woman in a sweater and pearls.

Hi! Remember me? The familiar red, white and blue BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tin from the 1970s.

1970s:  The 1970s saw the familiar red, white and blue BAND-AID® Brand tins, like the BAND-AID® Brand Plastic Strips tin above.  For many readers, this tin instantly calls up childhood memories.

A BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tin circa early 1990s. From this blogger’s personal collection.

1980s — 1990s:  This era continued the red, white and blue tins, but also saw the introduction of glow in the dark and hot colors BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages with brightly colored tins.

So how popular do BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tins remain?   They still have a tremendous amount of fans and collectors – one collector mentioned to this blogger that he had about 500 of our vintage tins.  But it doesn’t stop there:  even though our consumer operating company hasn’t packaged BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages in tins since the 1990s, many consumers still bring their BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages home from the store, take them out of the cardboard package and (you guessed it!) put them into a vintage BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tin!  In recognition of the popularity and iconic status of the tins, our consumer folks have recently issued some limited edition BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages in tins.

They’re baaaaack! Our beloved tins made a comeback in limited edition.

Did you grow up with BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tins in your house?  Which tin did you grow up with?  How did you and your family repurpose them?  And which tins in this post are your favorites?  Let me know in the comments section below!

Sir Joseph Lister, from our archives

A recent column commemorating Sir Joseph Lister’s April 5th birthday opened with this startling statement:  “Joseph Lister, who was born this week (April 5) in 1827, was an amazing physician but a poor salesman.”  [“Lister's Life Saving Discovery, by Bruce Kauffmann, Telegraph Herald, Dubuque, IA and the Appeal-Democrat in Marysville, CA]  It may have taken some time to inspire skeptical surgeons in the late 1800s, but Lister did inspire two people who were very good at spreading the word, and they took up the cause of making surgery sterile:  Robert Wood Johnson and Fred Kilmer.

Robert Wood Johnson (L) and Fred Kilmer (R): both inspired by Sir Joseph Lister

The writer of this terrific column draws his conclusion about Lister’s seeming inability to get people excited about sterile surgery based on the fact that it took a considerable amount of time for sterile surgery to be accepted by 19th century doctors and surgeons. He cites Lister’s speech at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition’s Medical Congress:  Lister’s skeptical audience of doctors was not impressed, even though sterile surgery was clearly the way of the future.  But one person in Lister’s audience that day was impressed — medicated plaster maker Robert Wood Johnson.  Lister so inspired Johnson that he and his brothers started Johnson & Johnson and made the first mass produced sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures to help drive the adoption of sterile surgery.

Company founder Robert Wood Johnson, from our archives.

As regular readers of this blog know, Johnson attended the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition to represent the company in which he was a partner at the time: Seabury & Johnson.  Intellectually curious and interested in improving health care, Johnson signed up to attend Lister’s lecture at the Medical Congress.  As Bruce Kauffman points out in his column, the American doctors in the audience met Lister’s conclusions with skepticism.  In fact, Lister had been invited to speak by some very prominent American surgeons who were determined to discredit his arguments for sterile surgery. With two Union Army veterans among his older brothers, Robert Wood Johnson was probably very familiar with stories about the horrendous conditions of Civil War battlefnield medicine and surgery, and he was a ready audience for Lister.  In the audience that day, Johnson understood immediately that surgery needed to be sterile, and he was determined to do something about it.

Non-sterile surgery, complete with surgeons in their frock coats with unwashed hands.

Skepticism aside, if a surgeon in the late 1800s did want to try sterile surgery, he had to make his own sterile dressings and sterilize everything himself – a task that was virtually impossible to do if you weren’t at one of the largest hospitals with a lot of resources.  Surgeons used dressings that were made from scraps from the floors of cotton mills, and (readers may want to sit down before they read this description) when they needed to close a wound or incision, they frequently pulled their trusty sewing needle and sewing thread out of the lapel of their seldom-cleaned frock coat, re-using that same germ-filled needle and thread on patient after patient.  Surgical survival rates before sterile surgery were heartbreakingly low.

To put sterile surgery within the reach of every surgeon, Johnson wanted to mass produce sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures.  But his business partner didn’t share the same enthusiasm for mass produced sterile surgical products, and that led in part to Robert Wood Johnson and his younger brothers James and Edward leaving Seabury & Johnson in late 1885.

Johnson & Johnson price list from June, 1887, which included mass produced sterile surgical products. From our archives.

James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson started Johnson & Johnson in 1886, and when Robert Wood Johnson joined the Company a few months later, we began making those first mass produced, ready to use sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures, as well as sterilizing solutions for surgical instruments.

Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment, from our archives.

In order to build capacity for sterile surgery and push against the skepticism of the day, Robert Wood Johnson enlisted his friend Fred Kilmer to research and compile a how-to-do-sterile-surgery manual with articles written by the leading practitioners.  Johnson & Johnson published it in 1888 as “Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment” and gave it away for free to the medical profession.  Not only was Fred Kilmer (who joined Johnson & Johnson as our scientific director in 1889) a talented writer, he was a tireless advocate for sterile surgery, and he helped provide the publicity, attention and instructions – combined with his friend Robert Wood Johnson’s mass produced, ready-to-use sterile surgical products – that enabled any surgeon, anywhere, to try sterile surgery.

Aseptic seal from a Johnson & Johnson mass produced sterile surgical product, 1899, from our archives.

Johnson & Johnson’s efforts came to the notice of Sir Joseph Lister and, in 1891 he wrote to us asking for details about our methods of manufacturing sterile dressings and sutures.  Thrilled to receive a letter from the father of modern antiseptic surgery, Fred Kilmer sent a lengthy reply to Lister, which Johnson & Johnson published in pamphlet form.

So although Lister, as a surgeon, may not have been able immediately to convince his skeptical peers in the medical community that surgery should be sterile, he did inspire two people in the United States – Robert Wood Johnson and Fred Kilmer – who worked tirelessly to make sure that Lister’s dream of sterile surgery became a reality.

Built by Johnson & Johnson in 1926-1927, these buildings are still in use today.  They were among the first structures of their kind in their region to have indoor plumbing, electricity and hot water, and they changed the lives of the families who lived in them.  What were they?  A remarkable collection of homes near Gainesville, Georgia called Chicopee Village.

A street in Chicopee Village, from our archives.

In 1916, Johnson & Johnson acquired a 93-year-old company called The Chicopee Manufacturing Company – a famous textile mill that originally grew out of the Industrial Revolution and the need to make United States textile manufacturing independent of Britain.  Johnson & Johnson was the largest manufacturer of sterile surgical dressings during the Nineteen Teens, and was running its manufacturing lines around the clock in order to make enough dressings to treat wounded soldiers during World War I in Europe — while at the same time meeting the demand for sterile dressings from American hospitals.  Johnson & Johnson acquired the Chicopee Manufacturing Company of Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts in order to increase capacity to meet that demand.

Employees in the Johnson & Johnson Cotton Mill in 1915 stand in front of surgical dressings. From our archives.

The Chicopee Manufacturing Company was founded in 1823, making it officially the oldest operating company to join the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies.  (Codman & Shurtleff, founded in 1838, was the next oldest.)   In the 1920s, Chicopee was expanding, and land was purchased for the building of a modern, one-story plant near Gainesville, Georgia.  Most textile mills at that time were rather dark, multi-story Victorian era buildings with few amenities.  So of course Johnson & Johnson set out to build the most modern, one-story, light-filled building with all of the latest modern conveniences.  The new Chicopee mill in Georgia attracted a lot of attention, since it looked more like a college campus building than a textile plant.  It was the nation’s first modern, single-story textile mill, and it changed the way textile mills were constructed.

Photo of the brand-new Chicopee Mill in Georgia from 1927, from our archives. The building looked more like a school or a library rather than a cotton mill.

In addition, the Company constructed a village for employees of the new mill – called Chicopee Village.  Chicopee Village had 250 modern houses, a school and a medical facility.

A Chicopee VIllage house, from our archives.

Instead of being designed with identical houses (which would have been easier to build), Chicopee Village contained 31 (yes, 31) variations of modern brick homes.  The houses were among the first in Northeastern Georgia to have indoor plumbing, electricity and hot water.

Interior of one of the Chicopee Village houses, showing the fireplace, from our archives.

Every house had a modern kitchen and bathroom, screens in the windows (important to keep disease-carrying insects out) and porches.  In most cases, water and electricity were supplied to the residents for free.  For families with cars, there were grouped garages throughout the community.   For those without cars, there were buses into Gainesville.  For many of the families who moved in – perhaps coming from a residence without electricity or indoor plumbing — the houses must have seemed nothing short of miraculous.  One resident wrote to Johnson & Johnson: “ ‘We had a modern five-room brick house with all of the modern conveniences, and went to work in a modern mill where all was light and clean.  A new life was opened for us.”  [Letter from Chicopee employee to Johnson & Johnson, as quoted in Robert Wood Johnson, The Gentleman Rebel by Lawrence G. Foster, Lillian Press, 1999, p. 171]  

But there’s more.  Instead of being laid out in a straight grid, Chicopee Village was designed to have rolling hills and winding roads, to make it more attractive for its residents.  And in an era in which many workers’ homes still fronted on unpaved streets, Chicopee Village had paved roads and sidewalks, as well as a sanitary sewer system and storm sewers.  There were modern electric streetlights as well as electricity in the homes and, in a progressive and far-seeing move in 1926, all of the electrical wiring was underground – both to improve the view and prevent power outages caused by wires blowing down in storms.

“All village wiring is underground and 10 carloads of material were required to construct the conduits in which these wires are buried.  When wires are run underground in this way they cannot be short circuited or blown down by storms.  Their concealment, moreover, improves the appearance of all streets and houses while the landscape architects have given every other possible consideration to the symmetry and beauty of this ideal mill community.”  [Chicopee Georgia, Chicopee Manufacturing Corporation of Georgia, prepared and published by Doyle, Kitchen & McCormick, Inc., New York. Undated (1920s) hardcover book in Johnson & Johnson archives, p. 16]

The houses in Chicopee Village were in walking distance to Chicopee Mills – an important consideration in an era before everyone had a car.  There was also another reason:  walking was good exercise, and the Company wanted to promote good health and exercise for the mill employees and their families.

But there’s still more.  Chicopee village had a modern school that was designed to be a model for the state of Georgia, and it had a community center.  The community center was available for social gatherings such as dancing and movie nights, and it had a gymnasium for exercise and team sports.  Behind the community center were a swimming pool, tennis courts and athletic fields for residents.  And behind that was a beautifully landscaped park.  (By now, readers may be asking themselves “When can I move in?”)

There were also public playgrounds in Chicopee Village, as well as a store for residents that sold fresh vegetables and other foods.   (By now, readers would be forgiven for demanding to be able to move in.)

Interior detail of Chicopee Mill in Georgia, showing white enamelled tile on walls. From our archives.

Health, safety and well-being were primary concerns.  (A book in our archives about Chicopee in Georgia has chapter headings titled Safety, Health and Happiness.)  Not only did the mill have the latest safety standards and equipment (including automatic fire sprinklers), but the village had a telephone relay system for residents to report any kind of emergency.  A water filtration plant was built to provide pure, filtered water to the community.  Chicopee Village also had a trained nurse in residence.

Johnson & Johnson had some precedent for building employee housing.  Just a few decades earlier, the Company bought and renovated houses for employees in New Brunswick, on Morrell Street.  Chicopee Village was of special interest to General Robert Wood Johnson, and he put his beliefs about the social responsibilities of business into its planning and construction. With Chicopee Village, Johnson & Johnson put into practice its emphasis on health, safety, hygiene and quality of life for employees (and by extension, their families), and created a model community that’s still talked about today by the descendents of those who lived there.

By the way, if you’re interested in taking a tour through one of the Chicopee Village houses in the present day, you can do so for a short time on this site.

In the textile industry of the 1920s, Chicopee Mills and Chicopee Village were seen as the greatest advance ever taken to upgrade the status of southern textile employees.  [Robert Wood Johnson, The Gentleman Rebel, by Lawrence G. Foster, Lillian Press, 1999, p. 171]   And although we take things like indoor plumbing, electricity and central heating for granted today, for the employees who were experiencing these necessities for the first time, it was truly life-changing.  Years later, Robert Wood Johnson would codify the ideas that influenced the building of Chicopee Mills and Chicopee Village in Georgia into a one-page document that still guides Johnson & Johnson today: Our Credo.

Women have been important to Johnson & Johnson since our founding in 1886.  They have been employees, customers and generators of ideas for some of our most famous products. (Such as JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder and mass produced sanitary protection products, in case you’re wondering!)  But here’s something you may not know:  more than half – in fact, eight — of our original 14 employees were women, and they rolled up their sleeves and worked alongside our founders to set up the new company and make our first products.  In honor of International Women’s Day this week, let’s meet our first eight women employees:

1.    Kate C—
2.    Maggie S—
3.    Annie K—–
4.    Elizabeth C—-
5.    Teresa S—
6.    Agnes K—
7.    Lizzie K—
8.    Miss M. S. D—-

All 14 of our first employees in 1886 had been with Seabury & Johnson, Robert Wood Johnson’s previous company, and had been recruited by James Wood Johnson to join the new, fledgling business of Johnson & Johnson.

We’re leaving to make the first mass produced sterile surgical products. Who’s with us? Undated photo circa 1880s of Seabury & Johnson employees from our archives.

James Wood Johnson wanted the best employees he could find – the most highly skilled, the most willing to innovate and try new things – and he found eight women and six men who were willing to leave the established company of Seabury & Johnson to join the Johnson brothers in following their dream of making mass produced sterile surgical products and driving the adoption of Listerism, as Sir Joseph Lister’s sterile surgery was known back then.

A highly skilled Johnson & Johnson employee in 1892 demonstrates the Company’s method of packing sterile gauze into hermetically sealable jars. From our archives.

So what were our first employees like? They were highly skilled in making medicated plasters and the other products that Johnson & Johnson began manufacturing in 1886.  Some of them probably were involved in Robert Wood Johnson’s fledgling work in developing sterile dressings at Seabury & Johnson.  And they certainly were adventurous – they left an established business in East Orange, New Jersey to join a tiny little startup in another city based on a revolutionary idea.

Robert Wood Johnson, in his September 23, 1886 open letter stating that he had joined his brothers at Johnson & Johnson, provided a glimpse of our first employees:  “…all those interested with me have had a long experience in the manufacture and sale of these preparations, it is needless to say that they understand the art of manufacturing India Rubber Plasters…”  [Letter from Robert Wood Johnson the first, quoted in Robert Wood Johnson, The Gentleman Rebel, by Lawrence G. Foster, Lillian Press, 1999, p. 45.]

A close up look at the fourth floor of our first building, where Johnson & Johnson began. From our archives.

These pioneering women – alongside their six male colleagues – helped get things set up on the fourth floor of that former wallpaper factory.  They made our products, put them into packages, and boxed up the finished products in wooden crates for shipping.  In fact, the first check Johnson & Johnson wrote in March of 1886 was to the freightmaster on the railroad in New Brunswick – probably for shipping products.

The first check written by Johnson & Johnson, showing that the Company was in business! From our archives.

As the Company rapidly grew, our first 14 employees (including those eight women) would have trained our new employees in the rigorous methods of making Johnson & Johnson products, and some of those women found their responsibilities growing as the Company grew.  For instance, Miss M. S. D—-, one of our original 1886 women employees, was the manager of our Plaster Finishing Department in 1908 – the year in which International Women’s Day was founded.  In fact, she was one of nine women in supervisory roles at Johnson & Johnson in that year.  Miss D— joined Laura R—and Nettie B—, who co-managed the Finishing Department; Elizabeth P—, who was in charge of our Label Department, Kate B—, who managed our Jar Finishing Department, Gussie D—, who supervised our Sanitary Napkin Department, Emma T—-, who managed the Lister Fumigator Department, and Nora H—, who managed the Aseptic Department – our entire sterile manufacturing operations, and the most demanding area of the Company in which to work.

Aseptic Department employees, from our archives.

Completing this roster of extraordinary women was Edith V—, a college educated scientist, and one of four staff scientists in our Scientific Department.  This 1909 marriage announcement in The New York Times mentions that Edith V— was from Minnesota and went to college in Wisconsin.  So it’s quite possible that she moved to New Brunswick for work – a position in the Johnson & Johnson Scientific Department would have been a rare and extremely welcome opportunity for a female scientist over 100 years ago.  (Since Fred Kilmer — an early supporter of women in the field of pharmacy — was our chief scientist, it’s likely that he hired Edith V—, our first female scientist!)

Employees in the Johnson & Johnson Ligature Department, 1917, from our archives.

By 1912 sterile suture manufacturing had been moved into a separate department – the Ligature Department – which had a female supervisor as well.  It should be noted that the Aseptic Department and the Ligature Department, with their rigorous sterile manufacturing procedures and surgical cleanliness, were the two most exacting areas of the Company – and both of them were supervised by women in 1908 and 1912.

In addition, Elizabeth P—, Laura R— and Gussie D— were on the First Aid Staff, another role of great responsibility.  They were trained in accordance with the best practices in the JOHNSON’S® First Aid Manual, and they were first responders in case of injury or illness in the areas of manufacturing that they supervised.

Women employees who were part of our early sterile manufacturing, 1891, from our archives. Some of our our original eight women employees could be in this photograph!

127 years after those pioneering eight women helped Johnson & Johnson open its doors, women occupy a tremendous variety of leadership positions throughout the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies across the world.  As we celebrate the global contributions of women on this International Women’s Day, we also celebrate the eight women who rolled up their sleeves and helped a little company called Johnson & Johnson get off the ground in 1886…and whose spirit of innovation and adventure continues to drive our employees today.

Cover of A Study in Cotton, an 1899 issue of the RED CROSS® Notes, published by Johnson & Johnson. From our archives.

Today we take pristine white cotton swabs, cotton balls and sterile cotton dressings for granted, but over 125 years ago it was a very different story.  Cotton in the 1800s was not very useful as a dressing, and you wouldn’t have wanted to use it as a personal care item.  The natural oils in the plant fibers made it non-absorbent and it was, as Fred Kilmer described it, (you may want to put down your coffee while reading this one)  “…yellow and dirty…it was put up in wads, packed in any sort of a box or wrapped in loose paper.”   [RED CROSS® Notes, Series II, No. 9, 1899.  Published by Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, NJ, Fred Kilmer, editor.  “Commercial Absorbent Cotton,” page 3.]

In fact, surgical texts of the day cautioned surgeons to make sure that the untreated, non-antiseptic cotton wool was free from particles of dirt, insects and other, er…things that blog readers would not want mentioned.  Kilmer noted that the cotton of that time was of little use to a surgeon and, in the more enlightened era of the 1890s to 1910s, it would be considered of no value at all.  “In fact if the material then in use had not been improved upon it would have never been of much value to the surgeon, and certainly would never have been found in such general use as we find is the case to-day.”  [RED CROSS® Notes, Series II, No. 9, 1899, published by Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, NJ, Fred Kilmer, editor, page 3, “Commercial Absorbent Cotton.”]

But before the late 1880s, surgeons used it anyway, due to a lack of alternatives.  And that’s where Johnson & Johnson stepped in.

Having pioneered mass produced sterile surgical dressings, Johnson & Johnson recognized the potential for sterile, white, absorbent cotton as a surgical and wound care product.  So in 1886–1887 the Company set out to make that happen, which improved the array of tools available to doctors and surgeons and gave cotton a new lease on life.  Here’s what Fred Kilmer said:

“Johnson & Johnson made the initial step by producing cotton that was white, clean and absorbent, but the greatest improvement of all was in or about the year 1886.  We invented a system of machinery by which cotton could be carded and rolled automatically with a layer of tissue paper between each layer of cotton, the object being to keep the several layers separate and apart for convenience in handling and use.  It proved of the greatest service to all consumers: cotton had never been prepared in this way before, and it opened the new era.” [RED CROSS® Notes, Series II, No. 9, 1899, published by Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, NJ, Fred Kilmer, editor, page 3, “Commercial Absorbent Cotton.”]

Cotton carding machine in the Johnson & Johnson Cotton Mill in 1913, from our archives.

Beginning in 1899, Scientific Director Fred Kilmer began to document this work in a series of comprehensive articles in the Company’s scientific journal, RED CROSS® Notes.  He called these articles “A Study in Cotton.”

Johnson & Johnson Absorbent Cotton, 1880s.

The “Study in Cotton” articles contained a lot of scientific information about cotton, and they also told the story of how Johnson & Johnson made cotton wool clean, white and absorbent for the first time.  The Company quickly developed large scale manufacturing innovations, such as a water filtration system that produced bacteriologically pure water to wash the cotton, new large scale industrial sterilization techniques, and – thanks to Company founder and talented engineer James Wood Johnson – machinery designed to automate the process so that large quantities of antiseptic sterile cotton products could be mass-produced.

A delivery of cotton to Johnson & Johnson, late 1800s to early 1900s. Alert blog readers will notice the horse-drawn wagon.

Here’s how the process worked.  Raw cotton was delivered to Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick.  The bales were weighed and selected, and each one was numbered.  Samples were taken and tested from each bale, and any that were not found up to grade were rejected and not made into sterile dressings or sterile rolled cotton.

An inquisitive delivery horse checks out cotton that was rejected by Johnson & Johnson because it wasn’t up to grade, from our archives.

Once approved, the cotton went through around 40 separate processes to wash and clean it, sterilize it, dry it and make it white and absorbent.  In its last stage, the cotton was rolled, wrapped in its familiar blue paper, and sealed into boxes.  In 1897, the Company’s daily capacity of absorbent cotton was 10,000 pounds.  [RED CROSS® Notes, No. 6, September 1897, Johnson & Johnson Laboratories, Fred Kilmer, editor, New Brunswick,, NJ  p. 2.]  Two decades later, with the acquisition of Chicopee Mills, that production output increased exponentially to meet the need to treat wounded soldiers during World War I.

Johnson & Johnson sterile absorbent cotton in blue tissue, 1887, from our archives.

The packages of sterile cotton were sealed, insuring that the contents stayed sterile until the package was opened.  The Company also began packaging it in sheets with a layer of blue tissue paper between them, which made it not only convenient to use but instantly recognizable. In fact, it made it so recognizable that other companies began copying it.  But Johnson & Johnson had made the decision not to patent these new developments in sterile, absorbent cotton so that they would be as widely available as possible to the medical profession, because of the great help it would be to surgeons and patients.  [RED CROSS® Notes, No. 4, August, 1897, Johnson & Johnson Laboratories, New Brunswick, NJ, Fred Kilmer, editor, p. 2]

Examples of Lintine from an issue of RED CROSS® Notes, 1900, from our archives.

Johnson & Johnson went on to further improve its own improvements in cotton by developing Lintine, which was absorbent cotton felted into thin sheets.  Lintine was even more absorbent than the sterile cotton wool, and could be cut into smaller sheets like a piece of cloth.  By World War I in the Nineteen Teens, Johnson & Johnson was known as the largest producer of sterile surgical dressings in the world, and RED CROSS® Cotton was in most medicine cabinets.

That familiar box of RED CROSS® Cotton, 1913, from our archives.

Some of our cotton mill employees, circa 1915. These women — and the colleagues who came before them — were among our employees responsible for making sterile, absorbent, white cotton.

Today we take sterile, pristine cotton in its many forms for granted, but it took a lot of hard work to get to that point.  So the next time you’re using a fluffy white cotton ball, or a cotton swab, or a dressing, or even making a cotton ball snowman with your children, take a moment to appreciate the men and women who worked to change cotton from a grimy, non-absorbent, non-sterile mess to a sterile, pristine, absorbent mainstay of early surgery, of first aid since 1887, and of modern-day children’s crafts.

By the way, why did Fred Kilmer call his overview “A Study in Cotton?”  Shouldn’t it have been “A Study of  Cotton?”  (A similar pamphlet written by Kilmer and published by Johnson & Johnson in 1901 was titled “A Study of Adhesive Plaster.”)  One intriguing possibility is that the title of this Johnson & Johnson monograph may have been inspired by A Study in Scarlet, the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that first introduced Sherlock Holmes to the world.   As evidenced by his letters, Fred’s son Joyce Kilmer was a fan, and it’s likely his parents read the stories as well.  Since Fred Kilmer was, in some ways, the Dr. Watson of Johnson & Johnson’s early days, chronicling the Company’s pioneering work in sterile surgical products, industrial sterilization, absorbent cotton, first aid and more, it’s possible that the analogy occurred to him, and he may not have been able to resist the shout-out to Conan Doyle in his title.

(The public domain image of A Study in Scarlet above is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, at this link.)

As the old saying goes, the best place to hide something is in plain sight. That applies not only to missing items in detective novels, but to Johnson & Johnson history as well – specifically, to something as iconic as our first ever building.  Kilmer House readers will remember that we have two drawings of the first Johnson & Johnson building, but no actual, documented surviving photographs.

Well, that’s about to change.  Are you ready?

Photo that includes first Johnson & Johnson building, from our archives.

Here’s the background to the story.  We have this well-known illustration:

The first Johnson & Johnson building, by an unknown artist, from our archives. Pay close attention to the fact that it’s four floors high, it has a single chimney and a very distinctive design under the peak of its roof.

The artist who drew our first building depicted it with a leafy tree nearby and lots of activity — a horse and buggy, people coming and going, and other people deep in conversation — as befits a thriving new company.  He (or she!) didn’t include much of the surroundings, making the setting appear a bit more rural than it actually was.

Here’s what we know about that building:  rented by James Wood Johnson in 1886, our first building was a four-story former wallpaper factory that had once been home to the Janeway & Carpender wallpaper company.  Janeway & Carpender had moved to larger quarters, and their small brick building — in the area bordered by George, Hamilton and Nielson Streets, next to the Pennsylvania Railroad elevation — stood empty.  When James Wood Johnson’s train stopped at the small depot there in January of 1886, he glanced out the window, saw the building with a “to let” sign on it, and rented it for Johnson & Johnson.  Sometime in the late spring or early summer of that year, Johnson & Johnson began making its first products on the fourth floor of that building with just 14 employees – seven men and seven women.

Section of Sanborn Fire Insurance map showing first Johnson & Johnson building in 1886, courtesy of Rutgers Old New Brunswick website, Sanborn map sheet #5.

As the May, 1886 map above shows, our first building faced the alleyway on the Pennsylvania Railroad spur bordered by George and Hamilton Streets – where our World Headquarters parking deck is today.  Our first building is the pink rectangle next to the number 43 on the map, and it says “To Be Johnson’s Porous Plaster Mfy.”  It was connected to a long building marked “Vacant” on the 1886 map and on the other side, it was attached by a raised walkway to three more buildings — two rectangular buildings with an incredibly thin building sandwiched in between them.  The map also shows a smaller square building on the right – between the pink buildings and the yellow rectangle marked “vacant.”

Illustration of our buildings in 1887. Alert readers will again notice our first building on the left, with that distinctive shape below the roof peak.

In April of 1887, the Detroit Pharmaceutical Era published the second article ever written about Johnson & Johnson, with drawings of our employees at work and one illustration of our complex of three buildings – including, of course, our original building.

Johnson & Johnson grew rapidly, and by the early 1890s we had outgrown our first building.  By 1912 we were using it as a storehouse.  And here’s where our archives and that “hidden in plain sight” saying comes in:  we just happen to have an undated photo of our first storehouse!  The photo shows a set of four-story buildings near the Pennsylvania Railroad elevation with a distinctive sort of triangular design under the peaks of their roofs.  You can see that distinctive set of three buildings with the really skinny building in the middle from the Sanborn map, the lower, smaller square building to the right and…at a right angle to them, peeking out from the back, is our first building!  So you’re seeing here, for the very first time in more than 100 years, a photograph of the first Johnson & Johnson building.

Photo that includes first Johnson & Johnson building, from our archives.

There’s even a leafy tree or two in the photo – just as there was in that first illustration.  The photograph is marked on the back, “Store house, J&J, shows rear addition to first factory.  Photo taken from rear, Laurel Club looking across Neilson Street.”  (The Laurel Club building was on the corner of Hamilton and Neilson streets.)

The dirt road in front of the building is the continuation of Neilson Street – which today is the paved road that runs in front of our parking deck on our corporate campus.  The stone wall with the railing on the far left is a bit of the Pennsylvania Railroad elevation – which remains as a part of our corporate campus today.

Today, standing in the same spot as the long-ago photographer who took that picture, you would be looking at our World Headquarters parking deck and walkway.   But since this hidden-in-plain-sight photograph allows us to look back in time, we can – finally – have an actual look at our first building, more than a century after that unknown photographer captured it on film.

Fred Kilmer

We have a blog and a museum named after him, but 124 years after he joined Johnson & Johnson, we’re still discovering more surprising facts about Scientific Director and chief publicity officer Fred Kilmer.  Did a narrow escape help influence the writing of the first First Aid Manual?  How did he help inspire our tradition of disaster relief?  And why on earth did he have a pet alligator in his pharmacy?  How well do you think you know Fred Kilmer?  Read on to find out!

1. In 1882 Fred Kilmer was a passenger in a runaway horse and buggy on Church Street in New Brunswick, New Jersey.  The driver stepped out of the vehicle without fastening the horse’s bridle to a post (the equivalent of putting your car in park today), the horse got scared by something and took off running.  The buggy careened out of control and its wheel became tangled with the wheel of a horse-drawn grocery wagon.  When the horses reached Neilson Street (the street in front of the Hyatt Regency hotel today), they ran in different directions, flipping the buggy over and leaving the top – with its passengers – in the road. Luckily, Fred Kilmer escaped with only some bumps and bruises, but the other passenger was seriously injured.  The other passenger was carried to a local business to await the doctor.  Some years later, Kilmer (now working for Johnson & Johnson) researched and wrote the first First Aid manual.  The first First Aid kits – made by Johnson & Johnson in 1888 – were originally designed to treat railroad injuries.  The First Aid Manuals covered much more.  Kilmer described first aid as a bridge between injury and treatment.  Perhaps he was thinking of that long-ago buggy accident and the ways in which first aid training would have been helpful.

Public domain image of devastation caused by the Johnstown, PA flood, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons at this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JOFL_destruction.jpg

2.    Johnson & Johnson began its disaster relief program in 1900, when the Company sent products and financial aid to help the survivors of the Great Galveston Hurricane.  But did you know that Fred Kilmer, before he joined Johnson & Johnson, sent disaster relief aid to help the citizens of Johnstown, PA after the devastating May 31, 1889 flood?  Until the Galveston Hurricane, the Johnstown Flood was the worst natural disaster in U.S.  In response to the call for help from Johnstown, the City of New Brunswick started a fund to help the survivors, and Fred Kilmer contributed medicines “…of the kind most needed by the flood sufferers.”  [New Brunswick Daily Home News, Thursday, June 6, 1889, “Still It Pours In. Brunswick’s Fund for the Flood Sufferers.”]  Later that same year, Kilmer sold his pharmacy to an employee and joined Johnson & Johnson, reinforcing the Johnson brothers’ concern for the community.

Bottom section of Daily Home News ad for “The Stowaway” at the New Brunswick Opera House, April 3, 1889: “Seats now on sale at Kilmer’s.”

3.    Fred Kilmer’s Opera House Pharmacy (located on the ground floor of the New Brunswick Opera House building) sold tickets for Rutgers athletic games as well as theatrical productions and musical reviews at the Opera House.  For Kilmer, always looking for creative new ways of building his business and interacting with the public, it was a way to draw even more people into his pharmacy. Fred Kilmer would bring those talents – as well as his considerable scientific expertise – to Johnson & Johnson.

4.    For a short time in 1887, Fred Kilmer had an alligator in his pharmacy!  It was a very small one, and Kilmer kept it contained in a box so it didn’t wander.  The New Brunswick Daily Home News described the alligator as “a noble little animal with fine, open countenance…”  [The New Brunswick Daily Home News, Tuesday, December 20, 1887]  During one late night while the pharmacy was closed, the alligator escaped its box and went missing. The Daily Home News reported the story and asked that anyone seeing the tiny alligator return it to the Opera House Pharmacy; not only was Kilmer fond of it, but it was a favorite of the store clerks, who were described as “disconsolate” over its absence.

The Kilmer Museum at Johnson & Johnson

5.    Reflecting the incredibly wide range of his interests, Fred Kilmer was an active member of the New Brunswick Historical Club.  Kilmer was interested in history and understood the importance of documenting and preserving it, as we can appreciate at Johnson & Johnson:  he started our museum and archives soon after he joined the Company in 1889.  [New Brunswick Daily Home News, May 25, 1887, “The Pharmacists.”]

Photo of Fred Kilmer’s Opera House Pharmacy, from our archives

6.    Can you find Fred Kilmer in this undated pre-1889 photo of Kilmer’s Opera House pharmacy?  Well now you can!  Today, cell phone cameras are everywhere, but in the 1880s, photography was a major event.  So there was no chance that the proprietor of a respected establishment such as the Opera House Pharmacy would miss being in a photo of his place of business.  So which one is Kilmer?  As the owner of the pharmacy and as a respected scientist, he wouldn’t be one of the more casually dressed people in the photo – he would have stood up straight and been as formal as possible.  In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Fred Kilmer is the figure all the way on the left – as confirmed by an 1889 illustration of him from The New Brunswick Daily Home News – which matches the facial features and style of facial hair of the figure on the left.

With the month of December, the holiday time is upon us, as is the cold weather.  So, to get everyone into the spirit of the holiday that they celebrate, and in keeping with the cooler temperatures outside, here are ten more really cool things from our archives!

Two of the Johnson & Johnson steamboats in the icy Raritan River during the winter of 1917, from our archives.

1.    Here’s a very cool photo.  In fact, it’s so cold that it’s below freezing, and readers may want to put on a sweater just to look at it.  Here are two of the Johnson & Johnson steamboats huddled together  — perhaps to keep warm? — on the frozen Raritan River in 1917.

Not from our archives, but even cooler! Our very own Spring House Choir performs at the recent TEDx JNJ event at the Liberty Science Center.

2.    Meet the Spring House Choir, a group of employees from our Spring House, Pennsylvania location who are carrying on a tradition that goes back over 100 years at Johnson & Johnson:  employee singing groups.  From the all male employee RED CROSS® Choral in 1910 to the men and women of the Glee Club in the 1940s and 1950s, our employees have been using their singing talents to entertain for more than a century — and the Spring House Choir is keeping that heritage very much alive at Johnson & Johnson.  (Here’s something else that’s cool — although readers unfortunately can’t see the men of the Spring House Choir in the back row, they’re wearing white shirts and red ties to perform – just like their counterparts did 102 years ago!)

Is this the RED CROSS® Choral at the time of their first performance in 1910? Undated photo, from our archives.

3.    The members of our RED CROSS® Choral were described as wearing matching white linen jackets and red ties for their first concert in 1910.  Is this undated photo from our archives – of male employees in matching white linen outfits, wearing ties, sitting on a stage – a photo of our first employee musical group?

Shadowbox showing WWI dressing in our museum

4.    Johnson & Johnson has been making products to treat wounded soldiers since 1898.  Here’s a shadowbox in our Museum showing a wound dressing packet developed by Johnson & Johnson to treat soldiers during World War I.  Alert blog readers will notice that there’s no ending date on the handwritten description card in the shadowbox — because when this display was put together, the European War (as it was known then) hadn’t ended yet.  (It ended in 1918.)

The mystery box in our museum. What is it? Read on to find out!

5.    What is this big wooden box in our Museum?  Is it a storage container?  Maybe an old footlocker?  Nope – it’s a first aid kit!  In fact it’s one of the oldest first aid kits in history.  Johnson & Johnson made the first commercial first aid kits in 1888, and we made those first kits for the railroads after Company founder Robert Wood Johnson discovered that there was a tremendous unmet need for a way to treat injured railroad workers. This big wooden box is one the earliest railroad first aid kits we made.  It would have been kept in a railroad depot or on a steam train. Here’s a look at the inside of the lid:

The inside of the lid in one of our earliest First Aid kits, showing a list of contents and some basic first aid instructions for railroad injuries.

6.    BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages were invented by employee Earle Dickson in 1920, and we put them on the market in 1921.  Here, from our archives, are two of the earliest ads for the product, from 1921 and 1923.

BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages ad from 1921, the year the product was introduced.

BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages ad from 1923, showing a mother and child, from our archives.

The ads encouraged consumers to ask their retail pharmacist for a demonstration of the product.  Why?  Because BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages were the first product of their kind, and they were so new a concept that people at the time didn’t know how to use them without a demonstration!

1890 Johnson & Johnson ad from the U.K., from our archives

7.    Speaking of ads, here’s a Johnson & Johnson ad from 1890 – from the United Kingdom.  Although we didn’t open an operating company there until 1924, we had sales agents in London very early in our history.  In 1890, those sales agents would have been the sons of our original sales agent there, Mr. Henry M—, who Robert Wood Johnson most likely knew from his Seabury & Johnson days, since Mr. M— was the British sales agent for Seabury & Johnson.  You can read about our original London sales agent in this 1889 issue of The Chemist and Druggist, a UK publication.

View of a train on George Street, undated photo from our archives.

8.     Want to know what the view was like from our very first building?  Well, now you can!  Employees looking out of the windows of our original building would have seen the sight in this photo many times — before the railroad tracks in New Brunswick were elevated above street level.  (Alert readers who are familiar with New Brunswick will notice Rutgers University’s Schenck Observatory in the background, which today is right across George Street from our parking deck.)  This undated photo from our archives shows a Pennsylvania Railroad train stopped on the railroad spur that ran in front of our very first building.  It’s a view that would have been familiar to our first employees…and to James Wood Johnson, whose January, 1886 train journey brought Johnson & Johnson to New Brunswick.

So is this business dress or business casual? Women employees at Johnson & Johnson in the 1890s, from our archives.

9.    Here’s a glimpse of what some of our ever-fashionable employees were wearing to work in the 1890s, from our archives.

Who’s up for some coffee? The kitchen area in one of our historical manufacturing buildings, complete with coffee pot and coffee mugs!

10.    When employees today want to get a cup of coffee during the work day, they head to the nearest coffee machine.  Our employees over 100 years ago equally enjoyed having a cup of coffee at work, and here are their tin mugs – and a tin coffee pot – lined up on the shelves waiting to be used.

Mysterious tunnels…links to the past…The Underground Railroad…secrets of our Museum building…a legend about hidden treasure…and some survivors from the founding days of Johnson & Johnson.  Now that the days are shorter and the winds are colder, it’s time to gather ‘round the blog and talk about some of the more mysterious aspects of our history.  In a post originally scheduled for Halloween, but moved back due to Hurricane Sandy, here’s a look at some myths, legends and mysteries at Johnson & Johnson.

Mysterious Tunnels

Kilmer House: a building that was one of the namesakes for this blog, and it sat on top of a mysterious tunnel too!

Is there really a mysterious tunnel at Johnson & Johnson?  The answer is yes!  Several decades ago, during the course of removing a building dating back to the 1890s at our New Brunswick campus, a sealed tunnel was discovered under the foundation.  Legend has it that the mysterious tunnel was part of the 19th century’s Underground Railroad…or was it?  As it turns out, the tunnel has its origins even further back in New Brunswick’s past.  It was a mine tunnel, dating back to the 1700s when there were copper mines in New Brunswick — a legacy that’s still reflected in the name of Mine Street, just a few blocks from Johnson & Johnson.

Secrets of Our Museum Building

The Johnson & Johnson Power House, which today is our Kilmer Museum building.

Actually, there are two mysterious tunnels here.  The other mysterious tunnel – also sealed — is in the basement of our Kilmer Museum, and it dates back over a century to the era in which our Museum building was the Company’s Power House.  That tunnel was used to draw water from the Raritan River to run the steam boilers and electrical generators that supplied power for our manufacturing buildings in New Brunswick.   The other secret of our Museum building is the loading dock for horse-drawn wagons in the back — the last one of its kind remaining at Johnson & Johnson!

The second of our mysterious tunnels, during its construction in 1909, from our archives.

Did the Underground Railroad Run Through the Johnson & Johnson Campus?

Before 1861, the Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses designed to help men, women and children escape slavery, and brave conductors such as Harriet Tubman and “station masters” such as New Jersey’s William Still repeatedly risked their lives to lead people to freedom.  The Underground Railroad did in fact cross the Raritan River somewhere in New Brunswick.  There were two routes that ran through the city:  one went from Camden to Bordentown to Princeton to New Brunswick.  If Cornelius Cornell, their local spy and lookout, signaled that the path was clear, the conductors took their groups across the Raritan in New Brunswick and continued to Rahway, Jersey City and then New York.  If they got the signal that bounty hunters were patrolling the river, they headed to Perth Amboy instead.  (They used small boats to cross.)  The second route through New Brunswick crossed to New Jersey at Bucks County, Pennsylvania, continued through Trenton to New Brunswick and then on to New York City.  So although the Underground Railroad did run through New Brunswick, we don’t know exactly where its route crossed the Raritan. They no doubt would have chosen to cross in the least populated areas to avoid discovery, which in the earlier days of the Underground Railroad may likely have been closer to or on the land that would become our campus.

Pay a Visit to Our Founders

Sepia photo of the portrait painting of Company founder Robert Wood Johnson in Johnson Hall.

Robert Wood Johnson, James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson founded Johnson & Johnson way back in 1886…and they’re still a regular presence on our New Brunswick campus today.  How can that be possible?  There’s a perfectly rational explanation:  their portraits hang in the lobby of Johnson Hall, on our New Brunswick campus.  (By the way, that portrait of Robert Wood Johnson the first once hung in the office of his son, General Robert Wood Johnson.)

Touch a Piece of History

You actually can reach out and touch a piece of our history: a section of the old Pennsylvania Railroad wall on our New Brunswick campus: the railroad brought one of our founders to New Brunswick in 1886.

New Brunswick, New Jersey has changed considerably over the last 126 years, but there’s one item on our campus that has been a fixture since the days of our founders and our first 14 employees: a section of the old Pennsylvania Railroad wall that hides our World Headquarters parking deck from view – a reminder of the fortunate train journey that brought James Wood Johnson – and Johnson & Johnson — to New Brunswick.

The Legend of the 100-Year-Old Baby Powder

The scent that launched a thousand memories. JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder tin (early 1900s) from the UK, from our archives.

There’s a longstanding legend at Johnson & Johnson that if you open a very old tin of JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder, it still retains its scent.  (You can probably call it an urban legend, since New Brunswick, where we’re headquartered, is a city.)  It’s said that none other than General Robert Wood Johnson tried it and found it to be true.  So is it true?  Yes.  Your intrepid Company historian tried it with a 100 year old tin of JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder in our archives — which still did retain its distinctive scent.  Blog readers should be cautioned, however, that company historians are highly trained Indiana Jones-style professionals and we would never, ever encourage anyone to use an archival historic product – they are for museum display purposes only!

The Mysterious Conference Table

Did this conference table belong to our founders?

Legend has it that a beautiful old conference table at Johnson & Johnson World Headquarters was designed by and made for Company founders Robert Wood Johnson, James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson. Was it their early boardroom table?  Did the Johnson brothers and Fred Kilmer sit around that table and discuss future plans?  The table was once in Kilmer House, the 1893 building that was home to the Company’s executive offices, and we’ve traced its history back to General Robert Wood Johnson so far…but we’re looking to go back further if anyone has the story.

Hidden Treasure?

Grey Terrace: was there a mysterious treasure here? We’ll never know, since the house never gave up its secrets!

Another famous New Brunswick legend connected to Johnson & Johnson is that of the mysterious hidden treasure in the walls of Grey Terrace, Company founder Robert Wood Johnson’s house on the corner of Hamilton Street and Easton Avenue.  For everyone attempting to rush over there to search for it, Grey Terrace is long gone (since around 1960, in fact!), but its stone wall and fence still surround the site on which it stood, which today is a Rutgers University parking lot.  Grey Terrace was built in 1873 by a carpet manufacturer named Robert N. Woodworth, and legend has it that gold from an unsolved bank robbery was hidden somewhere between the walls of his ornate Victorian house, many years before the Johnson family moved in.  That legend is based on an actual 1874 bank embezzlement case in New Brunswick in which $500,000 went missing and one of the defendants was a fugitive: if you’re interested, you can read the transcript of the trial here.  Long after the Johnsons lived there, Grey Terrace became a Rutgers University fraternity house, and every year pledges were made to squeeze between the walls of the old house looking for the money, which of course never was found.

If anyone has any more stories, mysteries or legends about our New Brunswick campus, or about any other Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies locations around the world, please add them to the story by posting them in the comments section!