In 2011, Johnson & Johnson celebrated its 125th anniversary. When the Company began in 1886, the original 14 employees in our first building — that small former wallpaper factory in New Brunswick, New Jersey — could not have foreseen that 125 years later, their tiny little business would be a global company with approximately 117,000 employees at more than 250 operating companies in 60 countries. Those early employees were very creative in developing new manufacturing techniques to make the first mass produced sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures, and that creativity has stayed constant through the generations of employees that followed.  A century and a quarter later, it was on display in the many ways we celebrated our 125th Anniversary around the world.   Here are some of the highlights.

The celebrations around the world ranged from employee gatherings to events that included family members, to very personal acknowledgements by individual employees.  Some of our operating companies around the world also celebrated milestone anniversaries of their own in 2011, and they combined the celebration of their individual milestones with the 125th anniversary of Johnson & Johnson.

Our operating companies in Taiwan held a contest in which employees submitted stories about the memories and experiences that make them proud to work for Johnson & Johnson.  They also held a quiz to test their knowledge of Johnson & Johnson history.

 In Germany, employees across all of the businesses celebrated together with year-long stories about our history, posters and an employee event at which the Mayor of Neuss spoke.  Our consumer company in the U.K. held an employee event at the London Science Museum and in Ireland, all of the operating companies got together with an event for employees and their families.  Our businesses in France also held a combined celebration for employees and their families.

Many operating companies took advantage of the nicer weather during the summer months and held their 125th anniversary events during the summer:  Some of our operating companies that held events in the summer were located in Puerto Rico, Austria, the U.K. and Canada, as well as in Ecuador, and in New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the United States.  In Poland, employees volunteered in the community on June 7th to commemorate our 125th, and continued volunteering throughout our anniversary year.

Our consumer operating company in Indonesia held its 125th anniversary event in August, based around helping children in the community.

 

Our operating companies in India published a book titled Caring for the World, for 125 Years, which combined a history of Johnson & Johnson with a history of its businesses in India.  (The Company opened its first operating company in India in 1957, in case you’re wondering.)

Employees in Thailand, wearing special “J&J Spirit 125” t-shirts, packed bags of personal care products to help people affected by recent natural disasters in that region.   In Japan, 125th Anniversary planning also centered around caring for the community, with a focus on helping people affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

In China, the Company’s offices prominently displayed 125th anniversary posters, and employees held a big 125th Anniversary Celebration and Family Day in September.

Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Inc. revived the historical Company tradition of producing postcards (something we did regularly 100 years ago) and mailed 125th anniversary postcards with vintage Johnson & Johnson images to their sales organization.  They also held employee events and put together an employee oral history program.

In Romania, employees in the Janssen organization demonstrated their commitment to the community and the environment by planting 125 trees in Izvor Park in Bucharest.

Our operating companies in Spain held a cross-sector celebration in October at which they inaugurated a time capsule containing wishes from current employees for employees during our next 125 years.

Employees throughout Australia and New Zealand celebrated 125 years of Johnson & Johnson and 80 years of Johnson & Johnson in Australia/New Zealand in a wide variety of creative ways…including a contest regarding who could put together the best historical exhibit!  Not to be outdone in the Company birthday cake department, they also had a beautiful cake celebrating 125 years of Johnson & Johnson, and 80 years in Australia/NZ.

Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick held its employee picnic on August 3rd.  It was kicked off by ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange direct from the celebration in New Brunswick….only a short trip across the street from the site of our first building where those 14 employees worked in 1886.

Not only did it commemorate 125 years of Johnson & Johnson, it was the largest – and loudest! — participation in an opening bell ringing in NYSE history.  It was followed by a day-long picnic that employees joined as their schedules permitted, with food, carnival games, speeches and live music.  Mayor James Cahill of New Brunswick proclaimed the day “Johnson & Johnson day” in New Brunswick, and Canadian country music star George Canyon, who is a spokesperson for one of our operating companies, played a concert for employees and spoke about how products from the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies help him manage his diabetes and allow him to pursue his dreams.

And in a very personal celebration, an employee at our operating company DePuyMitek, Inc. committed to running 125k on a treadmill in their fitness center to raise money for his company’s United Way Campaign in honor of Johnson & Johnson’s 125th Anniversary.

Employees at the Johnson & Johnson Sales and Logistics Company, LLC had a cake and ice cream social to celebrate, and put together an inspirational paper quilt about what working for Johnson & Johnson means to them.  And since blog readers got a glimpse of the SLC’s cake, it’s only fair to include one from the celebration at our operating companies in Brazil.

The 125th Anniversary celebration also saw another historical first for Johnson & Johnson and its operating companies:  it marked the largest number of employees in the Company’s history ever to celebrate a milestone anniversary.  It allowed employees at our global decentralized operating companies to come together to celebrate the shared heritage and values of Johnson & Johnson as we look forward to our next 125 years.

Here’s the ennTV story about some of our 125th Anniversary celebrations around the world.  Alert blog readers will notice a few more 125th Anniversary cakes from around the world in the video:

Johnson & Johnson opened its first international operating company in Canada in 1919, followed by one in the United Kingdom in 1924.  Our decentralized global expansion continued, and today the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies is made up of more than 250 operating companies in 60 countries.  A Johnson & Johnson employee traveling around the world today would see a Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies presence across the globe.  But what if a Johnson & Johnson employee decided to go around the world back in 1908?  He or she would still see a Johnson & Johnson presence around the world.  How was that possible?  Through the close relationships the Company had with its global sales agents over 100 years ago.

Let’s join that Johnson & Johnson employee on a trip around the world in 1908.  Our first stop is  Canada, by way of the U.K.  But for our first stop, we need to go back further, to 1888, two years after Johnson & Johnson was founded.  At that time, the Johnson brothers were already building partnerships with sales agents to sell the Company’s products across the world.  Their oldest partnership was with the Gilmour brothers, who became the Johnson & Johnson sales agents in Montreal, Canada.  The relationship with the Gilmours began around 1888-1889 and, by 1919, it had progressed into such a close partnership that they were hired by the Johnson brothers to manage our first international operating company in Canada.

In the U.K., Johnson & Johnson opened its first operating company in 1924, but in November of 1908, you could find us at the London Medical Exhibition.  Our booth at that event was staffed by the Company’s U.K. sales agents, John Timpson & Company.

The Company also had sales representatives in Germany. The photo below shows one of the representatives from Hamburg, who found a creative way to travel on the Company’s behalf.

 

Next stop:  Japan.   Here’s a retail pharmacy in Kobe, Japan in June of 1909.  Alert blog readers will notice the Company’s large and eye-catching cotton ad, hanging at the back of the pharmacy.

 

The same ad was also spotted in Mexico City, at the offices of the Company’s sales agents.

At the Bombay Medical Congress in Mumbai, India in early February and March of 1909, Johnson & Johnson was one of only a very few American companies to have an exhibit.  The congress focused on subjects that included infectious disease, some non-communicable diseases, and public health.  Part of the exhibit was a model operating theater, complete with sterile surgical dressings from Johnson & Johnson.   The local newspaper in Mumbai mentioned “ ‘here was housed the finest exhibit of surgical dressings from the Johnson & Johnson laboratories.  These products…were the subject of much discussion.’ ”  [THE RED CROSS® MESSENGER Vol I, #12, May 1909, p. 160]

 

Here’s a pharmacy in Nova Scotia, Canada in 1908 with…you guessed it…Johnson & Johnson products prominently displayed in the window.

 

And even in a rural Canadian town called Gowanda that grew up around silver mining, Johnson & Johnson products could be found at the log cabin pharmacy in 1908.

 

The Company had sales agents traveling through in Egypt as well.  Here’s one of them in October of 1909.

In Australia, where Johnson & Johnson opened an operating company in 1931, the Company’s products had been available since the late 1800s.  In 1908, the sales agents for Australia and New Zealand were Potter & Birks.  To give you an idea of how comprehensively they represented the Company, their 1912 catalog of Johnson & Johnson products available in Australia was an impressive 115 pages in length.

Potter & Birks even published an Australian counterpart of The RED CROSS® Messenger, the Company’s publication for retail pharmacists.  The Australian version was called the RED CHAIN MESSENGER, with Eric Birks as the Australian editor, and Fred Kilmer listed as the American editor.  Like the American edition, the RED CHAIN MESSENGER (named after the distinctive Red Chain logo design on some of the Company’s products outside of the United States, and on the publication’s cover) was designed to help Australasian retain pharmacists build their businesses while educating them about Johnson & Johnson, its products and its philosophy.

In the U.S., the Company’s San Francisco sales agents, Waldron & Dietrich, received special permission to telegraph an appeal to Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick after the April 18, 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.  Their quick action allowed Johnson & Johnson to have railway cars full of products on their way from New Brunswick to San Francisco within hours, marking the official start of our disaster relief program.

Finally, alert Kilmer House readers will by now have picked up on the fact that our sales agents in the U.S. and around the world shared something else with Johnson & Johnson, besides a close relationship, a dedication to making our products available, and a desire to help improve healthcare:  an ampersand in their company names.

 

Thanks to my colleagues at Johnson & Johnson Australia and New Zealand for the photo of the RED CHAIN Messenger, from the excellent book Johnson & Johnson, 75 Years of Caring, Australia and New Zealand, by Peter Donovan, © Johnson & Johnson, 2006.

As we celebrate Veterans Day, we remember the men and women past and present who serve their countries.  At Johnson & Johnson, our employees have a long tradition of service that dates back to the Spanish American War in 1898 — which started some traditions here that we still have today.  During these times, Johnson & Johnson employees supported each other, sent care packages to their colleagues in the military, and kept each other current on the news — both from the Company and from those serving in the military.  During World War II, employees maintained this tradition of support as part of their many contributions to the war effort.

Among those contributions were the Company’s War Bonds drives.  War Bonds drives were common events during the 1940s across the U.S., and Johnson & Johnson employees held them as well.  In fact, the War Bonds rally at the Company’s New Brunswick, New Jersey headquarters hosted a very special guest:  Hollywood movie star Hedy Lamarr.  The title of this post, “Keep ‘Em Flying,” is a reference to the Company’s War Bonds rallies:  it was a slogan of the national War Bonds campaigns during the 1940s, and it was used in the campaigns at Johnson & Johnson as well.

Johnson & Johnson employees also kept letters and packages flying to their colleagues who were away serving their country.  The September 15, 1943 edition of the Johnson & Johnson Bulletin (our U.S. employee newsletter in the 1940s) noted that 300 care packages were mailed from Johnson & Johnson to employees in the military.  The packages included gauze pads, JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder, tooth brushes, analgesic balm, burn ointment, dental floss, BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages and a Travel First Aid Kit.  The Company apologized for not being able to include employees overseas in the mailing, but postal regulations at the time prohibited it.  The solders receiving the packages were stateside only, as the September 15, 1943 edition of the Bulletin the employee newsletter, explained.  “Because of strict postal regulations, only servicemen in this country received the packages.”

Here are some of the thank you letters our employees sent back to their colleagues:

 

Written by Philip B—-, an Ensign in the U.S.C.G.R., to his colleagues in the Plaster Finishing Department.

“Hi Gang!

…It’s so nice to know that the ‘folks back home’ continue to remember us when we’re far away.  It makes us feel that our task is a vital one and that, even when the going gets rough, there are those who are depending upon us to do our jobs well.  The spirit which all the employees of Johnson & Johnson have shown again and again is what those of us who are actively participating need to keep us going.”  [Johnson & Johnson Bulletin, January 30, 1943, p. 7]

—–

Letter from Private John K——, stationed at fort Dix, NJ:

“It makes a soldier feel good to receive mail from back home.  Keller from the Printing Department is up here with me, too.  He also sends his regards to all of you.  Thanking you again for the swell Christmas gift.  Just buy the bonds and we’ll do the rest.  Keep ‘Em Flying!”  [Johnson & Johnson Bulletin, January 30, 1943, p. 7]

—–

Letter from Sgt. Russ V———-, in North Africa:

“Hi-Ya Folks!  Well, here I am again.  After spending a few enjoyable weeks in England, I picked up my bag and baggage and moved off to North Africa.  I am back on the job again.  I like to be doing this work, as it is worth while and interesting and makes the days go fast…Nearby we have two hospitals.  I think I’ll be here for a while supplying them…Although it has rained all day, it is usually quite warm in the daytime, but chilly at night.  We are passing through the last few weeks of winter here.”    [Johnson & Johnson Bulletin, January 30, 1943, p. 7]

The Bulletins were also full of news about the men and women at Johnson & Johnson who were serving their country.  (The Bulletin publication covered U.S. employees only.) The Company’s women employees made a number of contributions, ranging from employee War Bonds efforts to putting together airplanes.  Some became WAVEs or WACs.   Here’s an excerpt from a letter from Pfc. Frances R—-, who joined the WACs in the 1940s.

“I know I should have written to you sooner as I promised, but getting back into this Army routine sure is one tough job…Syd, please extend my regards to Mr. M—, Mr. G—–, Mr. A—– and the rest of my friends.  Again I want to thank you and I hope and pray that this war will be over soon so we can all get back to normal.”  [Johnson & Johnson Bulletin, September 30, 1943, p. 5]

 

The Bulletin also reported that Helen K——–, a former employee in the Company’s Ligature department, felt the call to do something more and she left the Company to become a riveter at the Boeing Aircraft plant in Washington State.  Helen reported back to her former colleagues that she was a “rivet bucker” working on the wings of flying fortress airplanes…just like Rosie the Riveter on this famous poster.

Another employee, Dores C—-, enlisted in the New Jersey State Guard for the third time.  In 1916, during World War I, she had been a sergeant and a staff interpreter in the military, and she continued her record of service in World War II as well.

During this time, some of the Company’s operating units produced products for the military, not just bandages, dressings, sutures and First Aid Kits, but also camouflage material, screens to keep mosquitoes away, gas masks and duct tape, which we invented as a military product.  As a result, Johnson & Johnson was awarded the prestigious Army/Navy “E” Flag, which the Company proudly displayed.

The “E” Flag had its origins in 1906 as a military award.  The “E” stood for excellence, and during the 1940s, the award was extended to include civilian organizations that showed excellence in producing products of all kinds for the military.  The “E” Flag generated enormous pride among employees at Johnson & Johnson, because it was a recognition of their efforts in meeting a different kind of need.

Our employees in military service during this time felt the very tangible support of their colleagues not only through the letters and care packages they sent, but also through the  many War Bonds drives, the military products (who doesn’t appreciate duct tape!) and the many other products they depended on  — products made by their co-workers back home.

 

Letter from Corporal P. J. K—–, Company D, 302nd Med. Bn., A.P.O. 77th Division:

“We’re on maneuvers now and will be for some time.  One night we had to break camp in a hurry and in the scuffle I left some of my equipment behind.  Among the equipment lost was my soap, so I was washing with shaving cream until I received that swell gift from J. & J.  Some days on our maneuvers we hiked 25 to 30 miles a day, and let me tell you at the end of the day there’s a lot of sore feet, knees and hips.  This is where I go to work strapping ankles and used over 300 rolls of 3 in. x 10 yards of J. & J. adhesive.  You can tell those girls in the plaster room to keep that plaster rolling.” [Johnson & Johnson Bulletin, January 30, 1943, p. 7]

 

Today, employees in the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies continue to serve their countries…one of our oldest employee traditions going back 113 years.   And we continue to support these colleagues and remember them on Veterans Day.

Although it seems hard to believe today, as recently as the late 1800s the concept that surgery should be sterile was still facing an uphill battle.  Some people found it hard to believe that invisible “germs” (as they were called) were causing the high rates of post-surgical infections.  Others (some surgeons included) still believed that infections weren’t caused by germs at all, which inclined them to view sterile surgery as an unnecessary affectation.  Surgeons who did want to try antiseptic surgery often lacked the resources and the technical knowledge.  What was needed was a how-to manual that also laid out the case for antiseptic surgery…and that’s where Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment came in.

Johnson & Johnson was making mass-produced sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures, which gave surgeons ready-to-use sterile surgical products for the first time. But antiseptic surgery was still not included in many medical textbooks of the day, and many surgeons were slow to adopt it.  So Company founder Robert Wood Johnson and his brothers realized that it wouldn’t be enough to simply mass produce the sterile surgical products.  They also would need to publish a manual.

Fortunately for R.W. Johnson — and for surgery patients everywhere — the answer was just a few blocks down the street from Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick, New Jersey:  pharmacist Fred Kilmer, who was a scientist, a talented writer and a believer in Lister’s antiseptic surgery methods.  Johnson and Kilmer had already struck up a friendship, so it was natural for Johnson to ask him to research and write a best practices manual on antiseptic surgery.   Kilmer wrote to the leading practitioners of the day, asking them to contribute articles.

But before we take a look inside that manual, we have to go back to the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Alert Kilmer House readers will remember that as the world’s fair at which Robert Wood Johnson attended a lecture by Sir Joseph Lister, leading to the inspiration to form Johnson & Johnson.

Lister spoke at the International Medical Congress, which was part of the Centennial Exposition.  He talked for three hours explaining his antiseptic surgery system, the relationship between bacteria and infection, and the ways in which antisepsis could prevent surgical infections, and he underscored his lecture by giving a demonstration of antiseptic surgery.  Lister’s audience was dotted with skeptics, many of them prominent surgeons, but medicinal plaster maker Robert Wood Johnson – whose older brothers fought in the Union Army during the Civil War, with its brutal battlefield medical conditions — listened attentively and knew that he had a business opportunity to make mass produced, ready to use sterile surgical products to help promote the adoption of Lister’s methods and save lives in hospitals.   According to this really interesting article about Lister from the 2007 edition of The Journal of Urology, the president of the International Medical Congress who had extended the invitation to Lister concluded that “‘Little, if any faith, is placed by any enlightened or experienced surgeon on this side of the Atlantic in the so-called (antiseptic) treatment of Professor Lister.’”  [Ignorance is Bliss: The Listerian Revolution and Education of American Surgeons, by Harry W. Herr, The Journal of Urology, at this site, 2007, p. 458]

So in 1888, Johnson & Johnson published Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment, and gave it away for free to the medical profession.  The booklet went through a number of printings and soon became one of the leading treatises on how to do antiseptic surgery.  The combination of the Company’s ready-to- use, mass produced sterile surgical products plus the manual put antiseptic surgery within the reach of most doctors and hospitals for the first time.  Let’s take a look inside Modern Methods.

The first section started by saying:

“The collection and publication of the matter contained in these pages are due to suggestions recently made by an eminent surgeon, to the following effect:  1st.  That the aseptic and antiseptic methods in surgery being of comparatively recent origin, most of the text books do not contain concise information concerning the details of their application.  2d. that the publication of such information, together with some of the special methods practiced by our leading surgeons, and the recent improvements in the general method, due to sanitary science, would lead to a fuller appreciation of the value of asepsis and antisepsis in general practice, and prove interesting to the profession at large.”  [Modern Methods of Antiseptic Would Treatment, preface, Johnson & Johnson 1888.]

Fred Kilmer then laid out the arguments in favor of antiseptic surgery, starting with examples from as far back as Ancient Rome.  He cited the work of researchers who had added to the body of scientific knowledge regarding the causes of infection in wound treatment and surgery, concluding with Pasteur, Lister and Robert Koch, one of the founders of microbiology.  The next section, Is the Antiseptic Method a Success?, presented hard numerical data that showed antiseptic surgery greatly increasing patient survival rates.  A followup section discussed updates to Lister’s methods and new developments in antiseptic surgery.

One chapter, called Articles Used in Antiseptic Surgery, provided a detailed rundown of everything the surgeon would need to perform antiseptic surgery – such as methods of sterilization, surgical instruments, drapes, absorbent cotton, surgical gauze and dressings, sterile sutures, sponges, soap and a nail brush (for cleaning the surgeon’s hands), and much more.  This section gave precise instructions — like a recipe in a cookbook — for preparing disinfecting solutions for surgical instruments.  It also detailed the way in which a kitchen table could stand in for an operating table if necessary, and it discussed how to use ordinary household bowls and dishes (sterilized, of course) to hold surgical instruments and dressings during an operation.  The inclusion of those items on this very comprehensive list is a reminder that, in 1888, many surgeons did not have access to resources such as a hospital operating room…and Fred Kilmer wanted to make sure the information could be of use to them as well.

A section on Important General Directions and Precautions urged surgeons and their  assistants to have all instruments and dressings sterilized and prepared before they started an operation, and to wear clean white coats instead of the traditional surgeon’s never-laundered black frock coat.  The manual also stated that if anything fell to the floor during surgery, it should not be used, and if a surgical instrument came into contact with an unsterilized surface, it must be re-sterilized [Modern Methods, p. 12].  While this seems basic today, in 1888 it was new territory.

The remainder of Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment consisted of case studies in a wide variety of surgical subjects by the leading antiseptic surgeons of the day.  Contributors included Dr. Hayes Agnew, Professor of Clinical Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania; Professor Lewis A. Stimson at Bellevue Hospital; Thomas Morton, from the Pennsylvania and Orthopaedic Hospitals in Philadelphia; and Dr. Hunter McGuire from St. Luke’s Hospital in Richmond, Virginia.  The back pages of Modern Methods contained a comprehensive price list of Johnson & Johnson sterile surgical dressings, drapes, gauzes, surgical sponges, surgical adhesive tape, and sterile sutures that surgeons could order, giving them the supplies as well as the knowledge they would need to take sterile surgery forward.

If anyone’s interested in reading Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment, you can read a digital version of the copy belonging to the Columbia University library, at archive.org, here.  And if anyone’s interested in looking at Sir Joseph Lister’s book On the Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery, you can take a look online, here.

In honor of the 125th birthday of Johnson & Johnson this year, here are 12.5 things you didn’t know about Johnson & Johnson:

1. Johnson & Johnson and the American College of Surgeons co-sponsored the first televised surgical operation in 1947.  The procedure was transmitted from an operating room at the New York Hospital to an audience of 300 people at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, two miles away.  [Johnson & Johnson Bulletin Oct/Nov 1972]

2. The founding of Johnson & Johnson is mentioned in the novel The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb.  The mention comes in a diary entry by one of the characters, a nurse who had tended the wounded during the Civil War.  The character in the book writes an 1886 diary entry about reading a newspaper article saying that Robert Wood Johnson was starting a company called Johnson & Johnson to manufacture mass produced sterile surgical dressings.  The character reflects on how useful those dressings would have been to help the wounded during the Civil War. (Thanks to P.S.F. for pointing that out!)

3. Johnson & Johnson was founded in 1886, but the oldest business in the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies dates all the way back to 1838. That business is Codman, an operating company that’s now part of DePuy, Inc. The origins of the Codman business go back to 1838 with Thomas Codman, who started a medical and surgical device company in Massachussetts…years before the founders of Johnson & Johnson were born.  Codman & Shurtleff  (Asahel Shurtleff was the other partner) supplied surgical instruments to doctors during the Civil War…the conflict in which two older brothers of the Johnson & Johnson founders fought.

4. Proving that it’s truly a small world, Codman & Shurtleff also was an exhibitor at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition – where Johnson & Johnson founder Robert Wood Johnson heard a lecture by Sir Joseph Lister and was inspired to start Johnson & Johnson.  The Codman website has a photo of a section of their 1876 first-place exhibit at the Centennial Exhibition…which Robert Wood Johnson no doubt visited in person before he founded the company that would acquire them 88 years later.  The online Centennial Exhibition website also has a photo of the full exhibit.  Codman joined the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies in 1964.

5. In the 1940s, Natone (the future Neutrogena Corporation) supplied 75% of all the lipstick brushes sold in the United States.  According to information in our archives, that business success earned the founder of Natone, Emanuel Stolaroff, the distinction of being called “The Lip Brush King” in the U.S.  There’s a picture of him on the Neutrogena website here.

6. In 1928, in order to inaugurate the first Aerokit (an airplane First Aid Kit) made by Johnson & Johnson, Robert Wood Johnson took one of the kits on a biplane flight to a “northern flying field.”  [The RED CROSS® Messenger, March 1928] 

7. Speaking of First Aid Kits, the Company’s Autokit in the late 1920s came with an oval metal plaque that could be attached to the front of a car, stating that the car was “J&J First Aid Equipped.”

 

8. And while we’re on the subject of Autokits, Sir Malcolm Campbell, the famous race car driver who broke the world’s record for speed in 1928 by racing at 206.9 miles per hour at Daytona Beach, Florida, had a Johnson & Johnson Autokit in his car when he broke that record.

9. Johnson & Johnson launched what was billed as “the world’s first diesel electric freight boat” in 1928, the Edward Farrington (named after a former Mayor of New Brunswick).  [The RED CROSS® Messenger, March 1928]  The Farrington was designed with a diesel electric engine in order to cut down on coal wastage and harbor smoke.

10. 83 years ago, Johnson & Johnson had a big arrow painted on the roof of one of its New Brunswick buildings.  What was the purpose of the arrow?  It was to point air mail pilots in the direction of nearby Hadley Field in South Plainfield, which at the time was the eastern terminus of the United States’ air mail system.

11. When television became a part of American life in the 1950s, Johnson & Johnson was one of the first companies to advertise on it, sponsoring early shows like The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Donna Reed Show, Cheyenne and Gunsmoke.

12. Over 100 years ago, Johnson & Johnson made a line of papaya-based products to help ease indigestion, under the brand name Papoid.

12.5   Joyce Kilmer, son of Johnson & Johnson Director of Scientific Affairs Fred Kilmer and author of the famous poem “Trees” wasn’t the only member of the Kilmer family to have a connection to plants. In the 1930s, St. Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J. had a garden of medicinal plants started by Fred Kilmer, which included plants from around the world.  Many of those plants came from Kilmer’s own garden. It was the only hospital garden of its kind in the United States at that time.

In commemoration of the 125th anniversary of Johnson & Johnson this year, we’ve put together a new video about our history called Johnson & Johnson, Our History: Our Mission.  The video has many photographs, artifacts, documents and films from our archives that have never been seen before, and it tells the story of the founding and history of Johnson & Johnson and the ideas and philosophy that have been the backbone of the Company for 125 years. The story begins in Crystal Lake, Pennsylvania during the years of the American Civil War…

Enjoy, and feel free to share the video with your friends and family!

As readers of Kilmer House know, Johnson & Johnson is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year.  Our employees across the world have been acknowledging this milestone anniversary in a variety of ways in their operating companies – as well as some of their individual operating company anniversaries that also fall this year.  These ongoing events in 2011 are maintaining an anniversary tradition at Johnson & Johnson that goes back 105 years.

In 1906, the first time Johnson & Johnson acknowledged a major anniversary, the Johnson brothers’ tiny little startup that began with 14 employees was 20 years old – a milestone for any new business.  Robert Wood Johnson the first was president of the Company, which had grown tremendously in its first two decades, from its beginning in a small former wallpaper factory to a growing complex of buildings on both sides of Hamilton Street in New Brunswick.  The previous year, Johnson & Johnson had completed its first major acquisition – the J. Ellwood Lee Company of Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, increasing the Company’s product lines for doctors and surgeons and giving Johnson & Johnson two new board of directors members, one of them being a writer and literary rival of Mark Twain. To acknowledge its 20th anniversary, Johnson & Johnson sent postcards to the retail pharmacists who sold its products, saying “In commemoration of this event in our history we will this year redouble our efforts to faithfully serve you.”

RED CROSS® Notes, the Company’s publication for the medical profession, published a retrospective on twenty years of progress called, not surprisingly, “Twenty Years.”  It discussed the great acceleration in scientific discoveries and progress in medicine and health since 1886, and talked about how Johnson & Johnson “…made their way largely by entering into unoccupied land and, by making a place for themselves and then filling it.”  [RED CROSS® Notes, Series V, Number 7, 1906] The article wasn’t talking about actual land, but about pioneering new areas – such as mass produced sterile surgical products and First Aid — in which there was great need, but not yet any products or information to meet those needs.

Two years later, the Company marked not a business anniversary but a significant increase in manufacturing capacity by hosting a reception for employees in the new addition to the Cotton Mill in New Brunswick.  Before installing manufacturing equipment in the brand new building, the Company used that space to hold a celebration to thank employees for their contributions to the Company’s success.

Johnson & Johnson waited until January of 1913 to look back on its 25th anniversary in 1911 with a special issue of The RED CROSS® Messenger, its publication for retail pharmacists.  In that issue, titled “The Years Glide By,” editor Fred Kilmer looked back on the Company’s progress over the course of a quarter century in business. That issue of the Messenger contained articles on how Johnson & Johnson began many of its products and traditions, such as the development of First Aid and how the Company started its tradition of disaster relief.

In 1921, Johnson & Johnson was 35 years old, and Fred Kilmer put together an exhibit documenting the Company’s history and growth since 1886.  The exhibit was held in the old Neverslip building and was open to all employees and “other such persons as it may be determined may be admitted.”

 

A reporter for The New Brunswick Times toured the exhibit, and gave a detailed report in the Sunday, July 3, 1921 edition of the newspaper.  Here’s what he said:

“…To commemorate their thirty-fifth anniversary and to refresh the memory of employees with the history of their progress, Johnson & Johnson have arranged an exhibit at a large room at their plant.  Here picture, document and product not only trace the history of the concern from the early days to the present, but reveal the plant and policies responsible for success.”  [The New Brunswick Sunday Times, July 3. 1921]

 

The exhibit was in eight sections, each illustrating a facet of the Company’s business, growth or philosophy. There were sections on the Scientific Laboratory and the strong basis in science of the Company’s products, a section on advertising and publications, information on the global reach of the business through its worldwide sales offices at the time, the development of First Aid, employees through the years, and one section on world events from 1886 to 1921.  Here’s what Fred Kilmer said about the exhibit:

“The period, a little less than a generation, covers the most important period of medicine and surgery in all its history.  It is likewise the most notable period in pharmacy and in the trade in drugs and medicines.  The period is an era of remarkable discoveries and advancements in art, in science, commerce, inventions…”  [“Thirty-Fifth Anniversary of Johnson & Johnson,” Fred Kilmer, 1921, p. 1]

Here’s another photo of the 1921 exhibit.

Fred Kilmer would no doubt appreciate the fact that some of the same photographs from that 35th anniversary exhibit in 1921 are being used 90 years later during the Company’s 125th anniversary.  Here’s a photo of an exhibit for employees this year that’s using many of the same images put together by Fred Kilmer during the Company’s 35th anniversary.

Employees in 1921, during our 35th anniversary:

 

And in 2011, during our 125th anniversary:

We know that Johnson & Johnson employees had The Laurel Club, an organization for women employees formed in 1907 whose members started the tradition of Johnson & Johnson employees exercising at work and volunteering in the community.  And employees formed a very popular Glee Club, which performed on the radio and sang with a movie star.  But they also formed a wide variety of other clubs, too, and in the 1940s through 1960s, if there was an interest among Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies employees, there was probably an employee club to go with it.

The Nut & Bolt Club, one of the largest of the employee clubs, was formed in 1936 as the result of a softball game.  (Unfortunately, our archives don’t go into more detail about that story!)  Its members worked in the Mechanical Department, which oversaw the Company’s manufacturing machinery and campus maintenance.  Although it was formed mainly for social activities, the Nut & Bolt Club members volunteered their time for a variety of efforts in the community and at Johnson & Johnson.  One of the Nut & Bolt Club volunteer efforts, a plant safety program, was so successful at reducing workplace injuries that it became a model for later programs. 

The employee club with perhaps the best club name in our history was the It’s Later Than You Think Club, which was formed circa 1953-1954.  This club was for single employees of all ages, and it provided an opportunity for members to socialize.  The philosophy behind the name was that members shouldn’t wait until later to try new things.  As the December 1953 – January, 1954 edition of the Johnson & Johnson Bulletin put it, “the club will provide a medium for people of all ages at J&J to meet and have fun at friendly gatherings.”  The March, 1954 Bulletin mentioned that the announcement of the club’s formation generated an “avalanche” of new members, and that they planned to elect officers and plan theater groups and other outings. 

Investment clubs were popular in the 1950s.  So Johnson & Johnson and operating company employees interested in learning about finance and investing formed a number of investment clubs (there was one specifically for engineers).  The club members researched the stock market and picked stocks to invest in by popular vote.  Employee investment clubs at Johnson & Johnson include the Exchangers (named after the Stock Exchange), the F&F Investment Club, the Engineers Investment Club, the North Brunswick Investment Club and the Raritan Valley Investment Club.  There was a lively debate in the Bulletin, the Company newsletter at the time, between investment club members and “go-it-aloners” – employees who invested on their own and didn’t want to join the clubs.

 

For really adventurous employees in the 1950s, there was the Blue Sky, Inc. club. That was a club open to corporate and operating company employees who were interested in learning to fly small planes.  The club was headquartered at Solberg Airport near Somerville, New Jersey and in 1959, members included about 36 employees from Johnson & Johnson and nine from Ethicon, Inc.  Three of the 1959 members were women, including two of the Ethicon employees.

 

 

The club members actually owned their own yellow two-seater Piper Cub airplane (which they chipped in and bought in 1958), and members took flying lessons with professional pilots on the weekends.  No doubt General Robert Wood Johnson, who was Chairman and CEO at that time, would have approved: he used to fly his own autogyro, and received the first private pilot’s license to fly one in the United States.

 

For employees who preferred club activities closer to the ground, 1960 saw a notice go up in New Brunswick asking any employees who were interested in joining a sports car club to contact the club organizer.  The call for members was successful because, in 1961, the sports car club held its first gymkhana, which was billed as a skills competition for members.  Activities included a garaging contest, a parking contest, serpentine driving, space estimating and figure 8 driving.  Despite the use of sports cars, the contest activities, like parking, were probably done at a very slow speed.

Johnson & Johnson also had a chess club that met every Wednesday at 5:15 pm in New Brunswick, and was open to employees at all levels of skill with chess.   And in a foreshadowing of our annual employee photography contest in New Brunswick, in 1962 a memo went out regarding the formation of an employee photography club to take pictures, develop them and show their work.

“Several J&J camera enthusiasts who do their own dark room work would like to form a small club with the idea of exchanging techniques and exhibiting their salon prints, say four times a season for criticism and honors.” [Memo from our archives, April 6, 1962]

 

One of the most interesting Johnson & Johnson clubs in the early 1930s did not have any employee members.  The Merchandising Club members were all consumers or retail pharmacists with an interest in Johnson & Johnson.  The club was formed after a national essay contest generated an unusual amount of really good merchandising ideas.  The employee in charge of the contest decided that, besides awarding all of the runners up with a certificate and a First Aid kit, he would start a club whose purpose would be the exchange of merchandising ideas among members.  Members, drawn from the essay writers, would be able to come up with and share ideas about how to promote the Company’s products in retail pharmacies.  They would also be able to vote on packaging ideas for new products…an early precursor to the focus groups and consumer insights used today.

The employee clubs at Johnson & Johnson and our operating companies were an opportunity for employees to get together around their shared interests, to learn new skills and hobbies, do community work and to get to know other employees across the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies.  They were a good way for employees to network, for younger employees to learn from employees with longer tenure, and for what we would probably today call mentoring opportunities.  Today, the Company’s affinity groups, though extremely different in their purpose and mission, provide some of those same opportunities for employees from a variety of operating companies and locations to get to know each other.

Sometimes a chance conversation can lead to unexpected things.  In Johnson & Johnson history, conversations have led to some very well-known products from our Family of Companies.  A conversation in the late 1800s between one of our founders and someone he met on vacation led to something that’s a part of modern life:  The First Aid Kit.  Here’s how it happened.

One day in the late 1880s, Company founder Robert Wood Johnson was on a Denver & Rio Grande train heading west through the Rocky Mountains, on his way to a much anticipated vacation.  He was planning to spend that vacation at a Colorado cattle ranch.

Robert Wood Johnson was an outgoing person, and he struck up a conversation with the railway surgeon on the train.  In the 1880s, according to this site on the history of railway surgeons, railway surgeons were usually general practitioners who had some experience doing surgery. Theirs was a tough job and they were hampered by the lack of sterile medical supplies and the fact that they often had to work outdoors, miles from any kind of medical facilities.  The Denver & io Grande railway surgeon, when he discovered what business Robert Wood Johnson was in, realized he had a sympathetic listener and he began telling Johnson about the frequent injuries to railroad workers laying track. 

Building the railroads was a grueling job.  When injuries occurred, medical care and good, reliable medical supplies were often too far away to do any good.   Johnson’s philosophy was to produce products that met unmet needs in society, and he had an idea.  What if Johnson & Johnson packaged its sterile surgical gauze, dressings and other products together in boxes that could be kept on trains and at the sites where the workers were working?   The railway surgeons would then have the supplies they needed to treat and stabilize the injured so that they could be transported to more comprehensive medical help.  If anyone is interested in seeing the kinds of railroad work Robert Wood Johnson and the Denver & Rio Grande railways surgeon talked about, this site has an 1896 Thomas Edison film of railroad workers laying track for the Black Diamond Express.

So Johnson & Johnson wrote to railway surgeons across the country to ask their opinions and advice as to what types of medical supplies were needed.   Here’s an excerpt one of those letters, from June 8, 1888:

“We are about to get up a railway emergency case, and wish to make one that will be of real service in the field it is intended for…it is our wish to get suggestions from practical railroad surgeons. We already have them from one of two of the surgeons of the largest western railroads.”  [Letter from our archives dated June 8, 1888, signed “Johnson & Johnson.”]

In 1890 The Company put out a kit called the Railway Station and Factory Supply Case, which was (as the name suggested) designed to be placed with railroad station agents and used in factories.  Here’s an 1891 advertisement for the kit: 

“To meet the demand for a practical base of supplies for the use of Railroad Surgeons, we have devised the Case or chest illustrated herewith, which is intended to be placed in charge of station agents at railroad stations, and is designed to contain supplies sufficient not only for minor injuries, but also enough for a number of serious accidents…In adopting the following list of contents we have followed the suggestions of several surgeons eminent in railroad practice.”  [Johnson & Johnson ad for Railroad Station Supply Case, 1891, from our archives.]

Fred Kilmer began researching best practices in First Aid, again reaching out to doctors and surgeons for information…and in 1901, Johnson & Johnson published the first First Aid Manuals, which were packaged with the kits.  An uncredited writer on the early manuals was Kilmer’s son, the poet Joyce Kilmer. The manuals provide comprehensive instructions, based on input from physicians, on how to provide “first aid” for a variety of injuries until the doctor could arrive. 

The Johnson & Johnson First Aid Kits filled a huge unmet need, and soon public buildings, manufacturing sites and homes began have First Aid Kits.  The Company made large First Aid kits that were designed for workplaces, and small travel-sized kits that fit into a pocket for people to carry with them.  In 1898, during the Spanish-American War, Johnson & Johnson made small kits for soldiers that could be carried in their packs or pockets.  

 

An August 28, 1890 listing of contents for the Company’s First Aid Kits mentioned at the top that it was “Recommended by the National Convention of Factory Inspectors” and listed 18 different varieties of First Aid Kits – all with different combinations of contents, depending on the need the kit was to fill.  All of the kits contained sterile gauze and cotton and sterile dressings.  Some contained an Esmarch bandage.  Others had sterile sutures and antiseptic sponges, as well as antiseptic tablets for use in sterilizing equipment.

 

When the earliest automobiles became popular, Johnson & Johnson produced Autokits, which were (as readers may already have guessed) First Aid Kits designed for use in automobiles.  When airplanes came into use, the Company produced Aerokits, designed for airplanes.  A Johnson & Johnson First Aid Kit was even part of the essential equipment on this historic flight. 

Johnson & Johnson trained employees in First Aid and formed an employee First Aid staff under the direction of Fred Kilmer.  In 1912, the future General Robert Wood Johnson was a member of that First Aid staff.  His area of responsibility as a trained responder was the Company’s new store house.    

In 1897, the National Association of Railway Surgeons held their tenth annual convention in Chicago, Illinois.  Johnson & Johnson had an exhibit there, and the Company prepared a special issue of Aseptis Secundum Artem (our 1897 publication about the preparation of aseptic dressings) for the railway surgeons at the meeting.

Today, First Aid Kits and manuals are so much a part of modern workplaces, public buildings, homes, cars, schools, camping trips and more that it’s hard to imagine a time before they existed.  The absence of reliable medical supplies and science-based information in treating injuries was once a huge unmet need in society, one that was filled as a result of a very fortuitous conversation.

High school students taking over Johnson & Johnson for a day?  A seventeen-year old Chairman and CEO sitting at General Robert Wood Johnson’s desk?  What on earth was going on at Johnson & Johnson in the late 1940s and the 1950s?  It was all part of a program called A Day in Modern Industry…an early cousin to today’s Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work events.

 

Johnson & Johnson started the A Day in Modern Industry program in 1947 and, like the invention of BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages, it was an employee idea.  The idea behind the program – the brainchild of a very creative employee — was to show high school seniors the connection between education and work, show them the different opportunities and careers available in business, and give them an idea of the kinds of education needed to pursue those careers.  It also gave students a chance to get a behind-the-scenes look at Johnson & Johnson – through spending a day here.

Johnson & Johnson worked with local high school guidance departments to make the program happen.  Students interested in participating had to fill out an application form that stated their qualifications, areas of study and job preference.  They were then matched with a Johnson & Johnson employee by their school’s guidance counselors and the Company’s Personnel department (the name of our Human Resources department in the 1940s).

Each student shadowed his or her Johnson & Johnson counterpart for the day.  The student learned about the employee’s responsibilities and participated in their “job for a day.”  Students attending the Day in Modern Industry programs worked in every area of the Company.

They took over the Law Department for a day.

They worked in the lab.

They worked in manufacturing.

They worked in accounting.

Some of them worked in shipping.

And one student got to be Chairman and CEO for a day.

The 300 or so students arrived at Johnson & Johnson on buses at 9:00 a.m.  At 9:30 they heard a brief welcoming address, and were then conducted to their work areas to meet their Johnson & Johnson counterparts.  After a morning of learning about their chosen careers, they regrouped to have lunch in the Power House (which had a big open area to set up tables) and they returned to work until later in the afternoon, when they gathered for a talk by Chairman and CEO General Robert Wood Johnson.

 

The students were encouraged to write about their experiences at Johnson & Johnson.  One student, M.J., was assigned to shadow the editor of The Bulletin, the Company’s employee newsletter. Here’s what she said:

“Today I am going to Johnson & Johnson to participate in the fourth annual ‘Day in Modern Industry.’… “…I join a rather large group that is assembling in the southwest corner [of the cafeteria].  Here I meet Mr. R—–, who introduces me to Don M—– and Dan S—- of Station WCTC, who are going to interview the students and employees, from vice presidents right on down the line…We finally come to the Communications department, where the Bulletin office is located.  Charles R—- and I discuss the different problems concerning the editing of a plant magazine, while our roving reporter friends listen in…”   [Johnson & Johnson Bulletin, May, 1951 “My Visit to Johnson & Johnson,” p. 13]

M.J. also visited a number of other areas during her Day in Modern Industry.

“Our next stop is Ethicon Suture Laboratories, Inc., a beautiful building that looks more like a hotel than a factory – which proves General Johnson’s statement that ‘factories can be beautiful.’  We then arrive at the Research Center, which has just been completed.  After inspecting a few of the smaller labs, we proceed to the offices of Dr. William L—.”

“Back in the cafeteria, we listed to General Johnson, as he tells us that, whether we realize it or not, the future of American Business is in our hands.” [Johnson & Johnson Bulletin, May, 1951 “My Visit to Johnson & Johnson,” p. 13]

A Day in Modern Industry was widely covered in the press, and it became a national model for other companies. Johnson & Johnson even produced a how-to manual for other companies, should they wish to organize similar events.  The program was written about in The New York Times and other newspapers across the U.S., in Nations Business and Forbes magazines, and on radio and television.

Why did we do the A Day in Modern Industry program?  Johnson & Johnson has long recognized that businesses are citizens of the communities in which they’re located, and their fellow citizens are patients, consumers, neighbors and perhaps future employees.  Students in the surrounding communities got to see what it was like to choose a career in business and what a workday would be like at Johnson & Johnson.  Some of the high school students participating in the program went on to join Johnson & Johnson after they finished their education.

But the A Day in Modern Industry program also had another benefit.  Just like social media would do decades later, the A Day in Modern Industry program in the 1940s and 1950s showed students that a business wasn’t just a set of buildings, it was made up of people.  General Robert Wood Johnson, who defined business by saying “business is people,” felt that the program was “ ‘a chance to break down the wall.’ ”  [Johnson & Johnson Bulletin, “A First Look at Tomorrow, J&J’s Day in Modern Industry Program Gives 200 Local High School Students A Revealing Glimpse of Their Future,” December 1954, p. 5] A Day in Modern Industry was a great opportunity for both sets of people – Johnson & Johnson employees and high school students – to get to know each other.