Kilmer House

To help everyone cool down in the end-of-summer heat, Kilmer House brings you ten cool things from our archives.  Enjoy!

1. A 1927 price list that belonged to Earle Dickson, inventor of the BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandage.  The pages inside have handwritten notes by Dickson and, yes, his invention is listed, on page 11.  Here’s the page that was most meaningful to Earle Dickson, with his handwriting.

2. A Zonweiss ad from 1887, the year after Johnson & Johnson was founded.  This one shows figures from Ancient Roman mythology discussing the merits of Zonweiss tooth cream, the Company’s first consumer product.

 3. Perhaps the earliest ad for JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder, from the 1890s, the decade the product was first introduced.

4. A wire mesh splint designed by Revra DePuy, the founder of our operating company DePuy, Inc.  DePuy, Inc., founded in 1895, was the world’s first-ever orthopaedics company.  Before Revra DePuy’s fitted splints, doctors used the staves from barrels, among other things, to splint broken limbs.  This one was designed for an arm.

5. A tin from Seabury & Johnson, Company founder Robert Wood Johnson’s partnership before Johnson & Johnson.

6. Two very old LISTERINE® Antiseptic bottles, circa the very early 1920s.  These bottles are small — only about four inches in height.

7. Fred Kilmer’s analytical balance, which he used in our laboratories starting in 1889.

8. The Johnson & Johnson factory whistle from 1901, when all of the Company’s operations were in New Brunswick, New Jersey.  It’s said that the whistle could be heard for miles in the towns surrounding New Brunswick.

9. The Company’s secretary and head of sales A. R. Lewis (L) and scientific director Fred Kilmer (R) getting creative by posing for a medicated plaster ad over 100 years ago.

10.  And finally, how did Johnson & Johnson employees stay cool before air conditioning was invented?  Fans!  Here’s a picture of some of our, well…biggest fans from earlier years.

Does anyone out there collect Johnson & Johnson vintage memorabilia?  We’ve shared some of the coolest items in our Company archives.  Which one do you think is the coolest?  And what cool things do you have in your collections?  Let me know!

Kilmer House salutes Richard B. Sellars, retired Johnson & Johnson Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (he served from 1973-1976), who passed away this week at age 94. Though only chairman for three years, Mr. Sellars had a 40-year career with the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies, and he had an impact that continues to be felt today.  Two of the things we owe to him are successfully steering Johnson & Johnson through the tough economic times of the early 1970s, and committing the Company to stay in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where it was founded in 1886.  

Richard B. Sellars during his tenure as Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson

Richard Sellars joined Johnson & Johnson 71 years ago, at the tail end of the Great Depression in 1939, as a junior salesman for the newly formed Ortho Pharmaceutical Division and 40 years later, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company.  From 1941 to 1945, Sellars was president and general manager of the Canadian Ortho affiliate company, after which he helped establish the manufacturing and sales divisions for Ortho in England and Scandinavia.  In 1949 he joined Ethicon, Inc., which had just been formed out of the Company’s historic suture business that dated back to 1887; remarkably, he was chairman of the boards of both of those operating companies at the same time.  In 1950, he was elected to the Johnson & Johnson Board of Directors (General Johnson was Chairman), and he became a member of the Executive Committee in 1957.  In 1970 he was named president of Johnson & Johnson International, the organization that oversaw the Company’s international affiliates at that time.

Mr. Sellars was a member of management when General Robert Wood Johnson wrote Our Credo in 1943, and he was a strong believer in Johnson’s ideas about the social responsibilities of business as outlined in that document, especially as they related to the Company’s responsibilities to the community.   

Richard Sellars talks with then-National Urban League executive director Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. at the 1973 National Urban League Conference

When Philip Hofmann became Chairman in 1963 – succeeding General Robert Wood Johnson – Mr. Sellars was named President and Chairman of the Executive Committee.  When Philip Hofmann retired in 1973, Richard Sellars succeeded him as Chairman.

Mr. Sellars in 1962

In the decades following World War II, New Brunswick – the Company’s home since 1886 – had suffered a visible economic decline.  Discussions had begun among members of the Company’s management about relocating the Johnson & Johnson corporate headquarters outside of the city.  Mr. Sellars, citing the third paragraph of Our Credo, which talks about responsibility to the community, guided our board of directors to make the decision to remain in New Brunswick, build a brand new world headquarters building here, and help revitalize the city. 

Richard Sellars (left), Former New Jersey Governor Brendan Byrne (center) and former Johnson & Johnson Chairman and CEO James E. Burke (right) inspect a model of the Company’s proposed World Headquarters at a 1978 press conference announcing its construction. 

Here’s what Richard Sellars said about that decision, as quoted in Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel:

“‘I looked at the Credo’s commitment to the communities where we work and live…and I reminded myself of General Johnson’s deep sense of loyalty to New Brunswick, his birthplace.  Those two factors influenced the decision to remain in New Brunswick, but I also knew that we would have to work to revitalize the city to make it worth staying here.’”  [Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel, by Lawrence G. Foster, Lillian Press, 1999, p. 614]

Among his other activities after he retired, Mr. Sellars led the revitalization effort for ten years, putting together local business, university, hospital and civic leaders to form New Brunswick Tomorrow, the organization that led and continues to be a leader in the revitalization.  This partnership between all of the various public and private groups in New Brunswick initiated by Richard Sellars came to be held up as a national model for successful revitalization in other cities.  The centerpiece of the effort was a new world headquarters for Johnson & Johnson designed by the internationally renowned architectural firm of I. M. Pei. 

Mr. Sellars at the 1976 Johnson & Johnson Annual Meeting, greeting a shareholder

Because of Mr. Sellars’ foresight, Johnson & Johnson employees in New Brunswick can still literally walk in the footsteps of their colleagues from 1886, and Johnson & Johnson remains an integral part of the city in which it was founded by three brothers over a century ago.

Johnson & Johnson Plaster Mill Employee (left) and fellow soldier, Spanish American War, 1898

My last post talked about the origins of our tradition of employees volunteering in the community. Another way our employees volunteered was through military service to their countries, a tradition that began in 1898 with the Spanish American War when two Johnson & Johnson employees in the U.S. volunteered to serve in the military. 

One of Our First Two Employees to Volunteer to Serve in the Military in 1898: He Wrote the Company a Letter

One of those two employees, Richard G., had just accepted a position in sales, and was understandably nervous about how the management of Johnson & Johnson would take the news that he had just gotten here and would be leaving to serve in the U.S. military.  So he wrote a letter, and here are his recollections about what happened:

“I had been in the employ of Johnson & Johnson but a few months when our country became involved in war with Spain…Here I was with a new job – and I needed it – and my heart was set on going to the defense of our country.  I decided to take it up with the company.  I wrote them a frank letter, telling of my desire to enlist and asking if they would hold my position for me.  Very promptly I received a reply from the late Robert W. Johnson, then the president of Johnson & Johnson.  I have always kept that letter…” [THE RED CROSS MESSENGER, Vol. XIII, No. 5, 1921, p. 346]

Robert Wood Johnson

Here’s the reply from Company founder and president Robert Wood Johnson, dated April 25, 1898:

 “Dear Sir:

We have your letter of the 24th and congratulate you upon your patriotic proposition contained therein. 

While we shall greatly regret to lose your services, and would be loath to consent to having you go for any other cause, yet under the circumstances, we not only most heartily applaud your action, but will be glad to tender you every assistance in our power.  Not only will we be glad to keep your place open for you when you return, but will also continue your pay the same as heretofore during your entire absence….Wishing you good health and good luck, we are,

 Sincerely yours,

 JOHNSON & JOHNSON

 R. W. Johnson, President”

Actually, according to Richard G’s recollections, the Company didn’t live exactly up to Robert Wood Johnson’s pledge to keep his pay the same during his service: they gave him a raise.  [THE RED CROSS MESSENGER, Vol. XIII, No. 5, 1921, p. 346]  Twenty-three years later, when he gave that interview to THE RED CROSS MESSENGER, he was one of the Company’s top salesmen.

Incidentally, the Spanish American War also started the first seeds of what would become our disaster relief program, which is one of the cornerstones of our support for the community today.

World War I – Our First Female Employee to Volunteer

Our first female employee to volunteer for military service was Katherine H., who lived in New Brunswick and worked in the advertising department.  She was a trained nurse, and when the call went out from the American Red Cross in 1917 for nurses, Katherine volunteered her services as a field nurse to the U.S. Army.

The Army rapidly promoted Katherine, and she was named head nurse and superintendent of the General Hospital #6 at Fort MacPherson in Georgia.  Here’s what the Atlanta Constitution said about her: 

“..her very presence gives one confidence…with the ideal of executive strength in her composed but expressive manner, her voice one that carries its message unmistakably, but is never sharp or loud.”  [Atlanta Constitution article, quoted in New Brunswick Home News, May 21, 1918]

A New Brunswick Home News article mentioned that the hospital’s sterilization and operating rooms were “models of up-to-dateness,” which makes you wonder if our employee volunteer, because she worked at Johnson & Johnson with its rigorous clean rooms and aseptic manufacturing standards, gave the military hospital any advice regarding surgical cleanliness.  [New Brunswick Home News, May 21, 1918]  Katherine H. was so well-liked by the nurses she supervised at Fort MacPherson that they presented her with a decorative loving cup as a token of their appreciation.  [New Brunswick Home News clipping in our archives, August 16, 1918]

From Fort MacPherson, Katherine was promoted to serve with the American Expeditionary Forces in Siberia 1918, and ended up as Chief Nurse of the Evacuation Hospital in Vladivostok, Siberia. When the war ended, she personally brought the last contingent of nurses from the hospital in Siberia back to the U.S.   Not only did they treat the wounded there, but they did their best to treat soldiers suffering from the deadly 1918 influenza epidemic as well. Here’s a postcard she sent back to her colleagues at Johnson & Johnson from Siberia, from our archives:

One of Our Early Employee Volunteers

Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies employees all over the world have a long tradition of volunteering in the community.  It reflects their feelings of responsibility to the communities in which they live and work, and it forms the basis of the third paragraph of Our Credo.  One thing that very few people know is that our tradition of employees volunteering in the community goes back over 100 years…and our earliest records show that it was started by women employees.  So, how did it start?

Another Early Employee Volunteer

Early Johnson & Johnson Volunteers in the Community
The earliest records we have of employee volunteers are from the Laurel Club, an organization of women employees that was started in February of 1907.  The Laurel Club Charter stated:  “The object of the club is to create a center where all may find opportunities of enjoyment and education.”  [Laurel Club Charter, from our archives, 2/14/1907]  From the beginning, volunteering and philanthropy were mentioned.  Nellie R., the Laurel Club president, noted that fundraising in the first year raised money to buy a bed for the General Hospital in New Brunswick, and that proceeds raised from a variety of club activities also paid for a holiday party and gifts for the 100 children at St. Mary’s Orphanage and the Industrial Homes in New Brunswick. 

Besides toys, the Laurel Club volunteers also bought the children hats, mittens, sweaters and other warm clothing.  Nellie R. noted that “All bills for this affair are paid and a balance of $23.00 invested in the J. & J. Savings Bank, to start another of the same nature or perform any act of kindness the club members may deem advisable.”   [Laurel Club Charter, from our archives, 2/14/1907]

The Laurel Club Building – on the corner of Hamilton and Nielson Streets in New Brunswick  – site of volunteer well baby clinics.

Well baby clinics were another early volunteering effort from the Laurel Club members.  The clinics were held for New Brunswick mothers every Thursday from 4:30 to 6:30 pm, and the idea was to keep babies well in a population that included many recent immigrants who may not have had access to regular medical care.  The Thursday clinics had a doctor and a nurse on staff.  The babies were weighed and measured every week, and the doctor advised the mothers about feeding, clothing and more.   It was stressed in the July 8, 1919 club correspondence that “NONE except the DOCTOR will be permitted to give medical advise [sic].”  [Laurel Club correspondence, July 8, 1919].  While the doctor advised the women who brought their babies to the clinic, Laurel Club members sat and talked with the mothers and kept the babies amused while they waited to see the doctor.  Viahnett S., the Laurel Club manager in 1919 wrote:  “…to save even one tiny baby will be a splendid reward for the summer work.”  [Laurel Club correspondence, July 8, 1919]. 

Laurel Club Members with wounded soldiers in rehabilitation, 1919

In 1919, after World War I had ended, women employees in the Laurel Club volunteered their time to help wounded soldiers who were being rehabilitated at the U.S. Hospital in Colonia, New Jersey.   Club members brought a number of the soldiers who were able to travel to New Brunswick, took them to a vaudeville show and a huge dinner at the Laurel Club.  (If anyone’s interested, they had a turkey dinner with mince pie and ice cream.)   THE RED CROSS MESSENGER noted that it would be the first of many outings to cheer up the soldiers during their extended stay at the hospital.  During the war, Laurel Club volunteers, combined with the Company’s male employee Glee Club (a singing group), had entertained the soldiers stationed at Camp Raritan with singing and dancing.

Member of the Laurel Club, Early 1900s

Employee Volunteers inside Johnson & Johnson
Employees also volunteered to help their fellow employees in the areas of health and safety.  One hundred years ago, Johnson & Johnson had volunteer first aid squads and fire brigades made up of trained employee volunteers – both men and women.  (Since Johnson & Johnson pioneered the first-ever First Aid Kits and First Aid Manuals, it was a given that the Company would train its own employees in first aid techniques.) 

Fred Kilmer, employee volunteer

Even scientific director Fred Kilmer volunteered, using his expertise in science and public health to teach classes for employees on health, hygiene and other topics.  Kilmer’s classes on hygiene focused on contagious diseases and the means of combating them.  In the days before antibiotics and many vaccines, that was crucial knowledge.  The class even had a written exam that participants had to pass. 

Fred Kilmer’s written exam: you had to study if you took his volunteer classes

Some of the topics covered were germs, disinfection, isolation and antiseptics, as well as the role of house cleaning, fresh air and sunshine in preventing the spread of disease.   Employees had to answer an essay question on how they would prevent contagious disease in their homes (they could choose from scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles or typhoid).  They had to name at least two disinfectants made by Johnson & Johnson (in those days, the Company made a wide variety of public health products), distinguish insect-borne diseases from those spread by animals, and discuss how frequently a person should be vaccinated to guard against smallpox.  The exam was very serious business, as was the class.

Close up of bottom of the Laurel Club hygiene class exam, with handwritten comment from Robert Wood Johnson 

Volunteerism was encouraged by the Company at the highest levels.  Company founder Robert Wood Johnson encouraged his children to give back to the community, including taking flowers to patients in New Brunswick hospitals, and co-founder James Wood Johnson’s family members helped employees make and roll bandages to help wounded soldiers during World War I. 

Another way employees volunteered was through military service and in my next post, I’ll talk about how that started, and led to a tradition that we still have today.

Regular readers of Kilmer House have read about the aseptic, or sterile conditions that Johnson & Johnson maintained over 100 years ago in order to manufacture the first mass produced sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures.  So I thought it would be interesting to post some of the rules for our Aseptic Department from 1897:  112 years ago.

You Can’t Do That!  A list of what not to do from 1897

Don’t allow a dressing to touch your person or clothing, unprepared tables, tools or apparatus.
Don’t touch any other person.
Don’t touch a dressing with hands that are not surgically clean.
Don’t, while handling dressings, touch your hands to your clothing, face, hair, eyes or mouth.
Don’t allow perspiration to drop on tables or dressings [Remember, this was before air conditioning!]
Don’t cough or sneeze over the dressings or tables.
Don’t carry or use a pocket handkerchief.
Don’t put anything in your mouth.
Don’t wear flowers, ornaments, jewelry or rings. [In case you’re wondering about this rule, many or most of the Aseptic Department employees were women.]
Don’t pick up any dressing or thing that has fallen to the floor.
Don’t use anything that has fallen to the floor without sterilizing it.
Don’t fail to have everything surgically clean before you use it.
Don’t touch anything that has not been made sterile without rewashing the hands.
Don’t be afraid to wash your hands often; they will not wash away.
Don’t allow persons who have not prepared themselves to touch a dressing or anything used in their preparation.
Don’t go out of the room and come back again without as thoroughly rewashing as when you first entered.
Don’t be afraid to be particular about everything you do or touch.
Don’t handle anything when it is not necessary to do so. 

[Aseptic Dressings, Rules and Suggestions, Johnson & Johnson, late 1800s]

The Aseptic Department in 1903.  Many of the employees in this most crucial and exacting department were women.  In 1908, this included Nora H——, the Aseptic Department supervisor.

One of the Sterilizers, 1897

Here’s a 1908 description of the Company’s aseptic manufacturing facilities.  The antiseptic laboratory contained a steam sterilizer, a sterilization method pioneered by Johnson & Johnson.   It was connected with the aseptic finishing room which, according to scientific director Fred Kilmer (who oversaw the creation of these rooms) was “…the outcome of years of study in the preparation of surgical material.”  [RED CROSS NOTES, Series VI, No. 6, New Brunswick, NJ  1908, p. 127]  Plate glass (which could easily be kept germ free) formed the partitions for this room.  The floor was made from hard wood, and the walls and woodwork were covered in smooth white enamel, as was the metal ceiling.  The tables were enameled metal with glass tops so they could be disinfected. 

A corner of the Aseptic Department – you can see the glass topped enamel table

Here’s a further description:

“The walls and ceiling are glass smooth.  The floors are filled and polished.  There are no closets or shelving, no cracks or crevices to harbor dust or dirt.  The furniture consists of glass-topped tables on iron frames, which allow effectual and easy cleaning.  Everything, whatsoever may be its nature or history, outside of this room, is considered as infected (though in fact it may be free from germ life); it is, therefore, disinfected before being taken into the room.  The entrance to this room is through an anteroom, which is a disinfecting station of the highest type.  Through this quarantine all persons and things pass before entering the aseptic room.  The inanimate objects pass through the sterilizer elsewhere described.  The operatives undergo a vigorous personal cleansing and change of clothing.”  [Asepsis Secundum Artem, Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, NJ, 1897, pp. 6-7] 

“Materials pass in and out of this room through a locking system that at once keeps out all dust and infection.  The air of the room is filtered through cotton under pressure.  Thus there is formed a perfect protective against dust and infection from without.  The room is without apparatus or furniture, except for the necessary bowls for hand washing and for the care of washable uniforms, and white glass tables resting on enameled iron…”  [RED CROSS NOTES, Series VI, No. 6, New Brunswick, NJ  1908, p. 127] 

Aseptic Department Sinks

Aseptic Department employees had to wash their hands, arms and faces with antibacterial soap, and change into sterilized uniforms and caps before starting work.  Employees from other departments and messengers were not allowed into the aseptic room, and visitors were only admitted by special permission of the office (which meant, most likely, that you had to gather up your courage and get your request okayed by Company founder Robert Wood Johnson), and only when under the direct supervision of the nurse in charge of the room.  Visitors couldn’t “mingle with the operatives,” or employees, in the room and they weren’t allowed to touch anything.  After each day’s work had concluded, all dressing materials and finished dressings were put away and a thorough cleaning was done.  Clothing and other smaller items were sterilized in the big steam sterilizer.  Tables, floors and other big things were dusted with a wet cloth, washed with antiseptic solution and then the entire room was closed and fumigated with sulfur and steam.

List of training course work and reading materials for Aseptic Department employees, 1897

So if you just followed all of those rules, you’d be all set to work in the Aseptic Department, right?  Wrong.  Employees involved in the making of the Company’s surgical dressings had to successfully pass a training course that included studying academic medical and scientific texts and reference books, answering questions and conducting experiments that educated them about the importance of preparing sterile surgical materials, the nature of the materials used in dressings and their preparation, how the dressings were used in surgery, how bacteria grew and multiplied, infection and disinfection, sterilization and aseptic techniques in the preparation of surgical dressings, and more.  Fred Kilmer noted that the aseptic rooms were at all times under the direct supervision of graduate surgical nurses, and employees had to scrub in like modern surgeons every time they entered the aseptic room. 

Aseptic Dressing Package Seal Signed by one of the Graduate Nurses, Elizabeth W——.

Illustration of Aseptic Room employee washing hands from 1897 Asepsis Secundum Artem (“According to the Art of Asepsis.”)

This detailed training and the Company’s strict requirements for manufacturing sterile dressings and sutures were in place at a time when many surgeons were still operating in their germ-covered street clothes, and Johnson & Johnson was rightly proud of its aseptic program, having pioneered these early clean room techniques. 

The reason that Johnson & Johnson gave for taking such painstaking steps was that the dressings had to be perfect because lives depended on them, a responsibility the Aseptic Department employees took very seriously.  As Fred Kilmer wrote in 1897, “The importance of the surgical dressing, the nature of its requirements, call for the greatest care.”  [Asepsis Secundum Artem, Johnson & Johnson, New Brunswick, NJ, 1897, p 16] 

You can still see one of the legacies of the Aseptic Department today, in the light, open design of buildings and interior spaces in the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies throughout the world.  The emphasis on bright white clean surfaces was absorbed by the future General Robert Wood Johnson and incorporated into our building designs worldwide…a very old tradition that we still follow to this day, over a hundred years later.

Then:  white enamel and walls with lots of light…

Now:  white buildings with lots of light

Let’s say you’re a Johnson & Johnson employee who wants to take better care of your health. You could visit the medical department for some advice, an exam or maybe a quick checkup, or attend a Company lecture on health and hygiene, or pick up one of the many pamphlets the Company publishes, or even get some exercise in one of the on-site facilities for employees – the swimming pool, or maybe the tennis court.  Maybe you would consider joining one of the employee athletic teams.  What year is it at Johnson & Johnson?  2009?  Not quite… it’s the Nineteen-teens.

 
The Nineteen-teens?  That’s right: almost 100 years ago.  My colleague Marc at the JNJBTW blog recently posted a guest post from Fikry W. Isaac, MD, MPH, executive director of Johnson & Johnson Global Health Services, about creating a culture of health at Johnson & Johnson, so I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of the things we offered employees in that area about 100 years ago. 

Hygiene and Asepsis

One of the aseptic rooms in 1917, used in suture sterilization

Since Johnson & Johnson made the first ever mass-produced sterile surgical dressings and sutures, the focus at the Company was on strict cleanliness and antiseptic procedures — to the extent that the Company’s germ-free manufacturing environments were cleaner and had stricter standards than those of most hospitals of the era.  Johnson & Johnson also published a number of pamphlets and bulletins on contagious disease prevention, public health, maternal and child health, and more. 

These publications were available to employees, and gave them the latest information on how to keep themselves and their families healthy.  Scientific Director Fred Kilmer also conducted classes for employees on a variety of subjects related to health and public hygiene.

The Medical Department
The Company had formed the Employee Welfare Department in 1906, which oversaw a number of benefits for employees.  Among them was a medical department with hospital and retiring rooms that could be used to treat employees in medical emergencies, or provide space for employees to lie down and rest if they weren’t feeling well.  In case of an injury, trained employee volunteers could provide basic first aid until the doctor arrived (and of course, they would have the Company’s wide range of products with which to do so).  But that wasn’t all.  According to the October, 1917 edition of THE RED CROSS MESSENGER, “The company employees a woman visitor whose mission of mercy is to call upon employees who are ill and to do all she can to help them and to see that they get proper medical attention.”  [THE RED CROSS MESSENGER, Vol X, No. 2, October 1917, p. 241]

One of the rooms in the Medical Department in the Nineteen-Teens

Employees also had ice-cooled filtered water to drink at work, courtesy of the Company’s elaborate water filtration system.  The ice was made with filtered water, too.  Here’s a picture of one of the water coolers from around 100 years ago, in the scientific laboratory:

On-Site Facilities
Johnson & Johnson had an outdoor tennis court, an indoor area in the Laurel Club for either tennis or badminton, and a swimming pool for employees that was connected to the Cotton Mill.  The pool had showers and a dressing room, with separate hours for men and women.  Among the classes given for female employees 100 years ago were dancing and calisthenics. 

Here’s a picture of our outdoor tennis court in 1917:

And the indoor court in the Laurel Club building.  The Laurel Club was an organization for women employees.

Laurel Club — indoor athletic facilities.  

1907 New Brunswick Home News article about athletic Laurel Club members at Johnson & Johnson

And here’s the swimming pool (the pool water was pure filtered water, too):

Employees also had a variety of sports teams.  Male employees formed the Johnson & Johnson Athletic Association, which had a baseball team and competed at the New Brunwsick, N.J. YMCA in early 1919.  That competition included basketball, tug of war contests, swimming races and diving.  [THE RED CROSS MESSENGER Vol. XI, No. 3, 1919 p. 81]  There was a women’s basketball team, shown in the 1907 photo below.  They look like they would have been pretty tough competitors.

Don’t even THINK of messing with us on the basketball court

And here’s the men’s bowling team from 1914, made up of office employees. The bowling team had been in existence since at least 1900.

So why did we do all of that roughly 100 years ago?  According to Fred Kilmer, it was all “…part of the service which Johnson & Johnson supply to their employees with a view of securing and retaining healthy and contented operatives.”  [THE RED CROSS MESSENGER, Vol. VII, Nos. 3 and 4, September, 1914, p. 88]   That same basic view continues to define Johnson & Johnson today.

Robert Wood Johnson

A recent post talked about Robert Wood Johnson and Johnson & Johnson being at the forefront of the debate about the need for higher wages and reduced hours to increase consumer spending and get the unemployed back to work during the Great Depression.  (In case you haven’t read that post, Robert Wood Johnson advocated for higher wages and shorter hours than the New Deal proposals were suggesting.)  Johnson implemented his ideas at Johnson & Johnson and, when his ideas worked, he tried in vain to interest the Roosevelt administration and other industrialists.  His frustration at the lack of response caused him to sit down late one night at his home in Princeton, New Jersey and put his thoughts on paper.  (He preferred using lined yellow pads of paper, in case anyone’s interested.)  But instead of just filing away what he wrote, he published it in 1935 as a nine-page pamphlet called Try Reality: A Discussion of Hours, Wages and The Industrial Future.

Try Reality was written from Johnson’s heart and his personal beliefs.  He sent a copy to every major industrialist in the nation, hoping for a meaningful response, and was met with…silence.  Meanwhile, Try Reality was getting widespread praise in the press because of Johnson’s progressive — and unusual for the time — ideas about corporate social responsibility.

In 1935 American industry was struggling for survival.  Although the New Deal legislation was moving forward, the Great Depression was still in full force. Many businesses were folding, increasing the already catastrophic unemployment.  Other companies were pulling back, closing operations, shedding workers and concentrating on doing only what they felt was necessary to survive.  In Europe and in the U.S., the economic dislocation gave rise to demagogues like Father Charles Coughlin and Huey Long who played on people’s fear and emotions and proposed radical solutions to the problems of the Depression.

It was in this atmosphere that Robert Wood Johnson spoke out about his belief that business had certain responsibilities toward society that went above and beyond just making a profit.

…“Private industry must solve this problem of poverty amid plenty if it wishes to remain private industry.  The people simply will not stand for a continuation of present conditions.  They demand and deserve a solution.”  [Try Reality: A Discussion of Hours, Wages and The Industrial Future, by Robert Wood Johnson, 1935.]

The italics in the paragraph above were Robert Wood Johnson’s.  He felt that this point was of supreme importance, and italicized it to make it stand out.  Most of Try Reality was about wages and hours, and set out Johnson’s familiar argument that the New Deal proposals for a minimum wage and a 40-hour work week (which most other industrialists were fighting tooth and nail) didn’t go far enough if they wanted to reduce unemployment and spur spending.  In the first section, called “Facing the Facts,” he wrote:

“The hours of employment and the problem of unemployment are two faces of the same medal.  They cannot be considered separately.  To do so ignores reality.”

At the end of the pamphlet was a section that Johnson titled “An Industrial Philosophy.”

“Out of the suffering of the past few years has been born a public knowledge and conviction that industry only has the right to succeed where it performs a real economic service and is a true social asset.

“Such permanent success is possible only through the application of an industrial philosophy of enlightened self-interest.  It is to the enlightened self-interest of modern industry to realize that its service to its customers comes first, its service to its employees and management second, and its service to its stockholders last.  It is to the enlightened self-interest of industry to accept and fulfill its full share of social responsibility.”

[Try Reality: A Discussion of Hours, Wages and The Industrial Future, by Robert Wood Johnson, 1935.]

This was the initial seed of what would become Our Credo. Johnson would think about and expand on these ideas over and over again – adding responsibility to the community, among other things – in the coming years before they found final expression in Our Credo in 1943.  Robert Wood Johnson would probably have found it interesting that, in light of recent events, many business schools are now looking for ways to increase their emphasis on the kinds of social responsibilities that he advocated and put into practice at Johnson & Johnson.

In celebration of Women’s History Month this March, Kilmer House salutes all of the women of the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies worldwide, from 1886 to the present.  Here are some facts about women in the early history of Johnson & Johnson:

1.  Half of the Company’s first 14 employees in 1886 were women.

2.  Johnson & Johnson pioneered many products in women’s health, including the first sanitary protection products in the late 1800s.  Here and here are some posts about how we advertised them at a time when you couldn’t mention sanitary protection in polite society!

3.  We also made maternal and child health kits to assist in safe childbirth at a time when most babies were born at home instead of in hospitals.   Here’s one of our maternal and child health kits from the 1890s.

Dr. Simpson’s Maternity Kit, 1890s

4.  In 1908, eight out of 36 department supervisors at Johnson & Johnson were women.  Women supervised many of the departments that were central to the Company’s business, such as the Aseptic Department (which oversaw the production of sterile surgical products), the Cotton Mill’s Finishing Department, the Sanitary Napkin and Plaster Finishing Departments, the Jar Finishing Department (many of our aseptic products were packaged in jars) and more.

5.  The Company’s tradition of employee volunteerism in the community started with women employees in the Laurel Club (an employee organization) 100 years ago.

6.  In 1908 the Johnson & Johnson Scientific Department had four scientists on staff.  One of them was a college educated female scientist.

7.  In the 1950s, DePuy (which became part of the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies in 1998) had a female president, Mrs. Amrette Hoopes.  Here’s an article about her.

8.  We used to have a women’s basketball team!  Here’s a picture of them in 1907:

9.  One of the most successful advertising campaigns in Johnson & Johnson history featured the work of a prominent female artist, Gladys Rockmore Davis.

One of the Gladys Rockmore Davis paintings from one of our ads

10. During World War I, one of the women employees in the Advertising Department served as a chief nurse in the American expeditionary forces Army Nurse Corps in Siberia, becoming Chief Nurse of the evacuation hospital in Vladivistok, Russia. Though she worked in advertising at Johnson & Johnson, her background was in nursing, and she was one of the first to answer the call in 1917 when the American Red Cross put out an appeal for nurses.   Here’s a postcard she sent back to Johnson & Johnson from Siberia.

Here are some photographs of women throughout Johnson & Johnson history:

Women employees in the Aseptic Department in the earliest days of Johnson & Johnson

Some of the women who worked in the surgical suture plant in Australia in 1934

One of the employees at our former Eastern Surgical Dressings Plant in 1970

A Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies sales representative in Malaysia in 1971

Robert Wood Johnson (seated in center) and  Employees

In my last post, I mentioned that Robert Wood Johnson, son of one of the Company’s founders, was able to put many of his ideas about running a business into practice when he became president of Johnson & Johnson in 1932.  Having grown up around Johnson & Johnson, even accompanying his father to business meetings as a child, the younger Robert Wood Johnson had very definite ideas about business and social responsibility.  What made his opportunity to implement those ideas particularly challenging was the fact that it was during the depths of the Great Depression.   Johnson didn’t let that stop him and, when his ideas worked at Johnson & Johnson, he didn’t hesitate to speak out to the press, to other industrialists and to the new Roosevelt administration.

Johnson’s first concern was to make sure the Company was able to weather the financial crisis of the Depression, and my last post talks about some of the things he did.  Although Johnson supported President Herbert Hoover, who was running for re-election during the 1932 presidential campaign, he didn’t hesitate to criticize Hoover’s economic policies, saying:  “ ‘Business can take care of itself, but until the government adopts a sound economic policy there can be no sound business revival.’ ”  [Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel, by Lawrence G. Foster, p. 198]

Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the 1932 election in a landslide.  Before he took office, Johnson wrote him a long letter outlining a four-point proposal for economic recovery.   In that proposal Johnson stated that the nation had to learn to live within its means; that efforts should be made to increase the prices of commodities (which had plummeted); and that wages should be increased so that employees could purchase more, while hours should be decreased so that more people could be employed.  It was that last suggestion that focused the national spotlight on Robert Wood Johnson and Johnson & Johnson.

Robert Wood Johnson circa the New Deal Era

Johnson released copies of his letter to the press, to some elected officials, to corporate leaders and others.  The Associated Press ran a summary of his letter that generated newspaper headlines across the country.  Since the U.S. unemployment rate was then a staggering 25 percent, most of the articles focused on Johnson’s call for higher wages and shorter working hours.  The President’s office said that he would review the proposals, while business leaders across the country, many of whom were struggling to meet their payrolls, kept their heads down and stayed silent.

President Roosevelt’s first 100 days in office saw the start of the New Deal legislation to lift the country out of the Depression.  This included unemployment compensation for workers, federal insurance of bank deposits, regulation of the financial sector, food stamps, Social Security, mortgage refinancing, and federal standards for wages and hours, among other things.  In April of 1933, Robert Wood Johnson wrote another letter to Roosevelt, asking him to gather industry leaders and allow them to come up with a solution to the problems facing America’s businesses.  Johnson felt that the population’s severely reduced purchasing power was at the heart of the problem, and he thought that a 10 percent wage increase would help fix it.  Five weeks later, President Roosevelt announced a plan for bringing together agricultural and industry groups, and Robert Wood Johnson was appointed a member of the executive board of the newly created Drug Industry Institute of America.  One of the group’s first objectives was (not surprisingly) a wage increase, and Johnson announced that Johnson & Johnson would give a five percent increase to all employees.  The Company’s workers were overjoyed, but the same couldn’t be said for some of Johnson’s fellow industrialists – their reactions to his enlightened approach were far less positive.

A Gauze Mill Employee, circa 1920s

The New Deal’s National Industrial Recovery Act included codes setting wages and hours for the textile industry, putting Johnson & Johnson at odds with government standards and with other textile operators (the Johnson & Johnson standards were higher).  The Company had owned the Chicopee Manufacturing Company since the days of World War I, and Johnson & Johnson was the world’s largest producer of surgical dressings, which were of course made out of textiles: gauze and cotton.  But Johnson & Johnson had higher wages and shorter hours than the new government standard, and complying with it would make it necessary to dismiss workers (as it turned out, the Company did not end up needing to dismiss anyone).

Exterior of Chicopee Manufacturing Company in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts

So Robert Wood Johnson went to Washington and met with Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins (the first female Cabinet member in U.S. history) and General Hugh Johnson, the head of the National Recovery Administration (or NRA, for short).  R. W. Johnson felt that the New Deal proposals on wages and hours didn’t go far enough.  He wrote:  “We should have a working day short enough to re-employ those who are unable to find work.  We should have minimum wages high enough for the people to buy what they produce.”  [Try Reality: A Discussion of Hours, Wages and The Industrial Future, by Robert Wood Johnson] Robert Wood Johnson even appealed to Congress and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but did not find any public support for his more progressive ideas.

Battle of the General Johnsons
The future General Robert Wood Johnson and the retired General Hugh Johnson would battle over this issue for several years, with Robert Wood Johnson consistently advocating for higher wages and shorter hours – a 35-hour week as opposed to a 40-hour week, and a much higher minimum wage than the government was proposing.* General Hugh Johnson left the National Recovery Administration in 1934 and the NRA itself was dissolved the following year.  When Johnson left the NRA, he gave an interview saying that he was opposed to shorter workweeks because he thought it would increase the costs of goods.  The interview irked Robert Wood Johnson, who wrote him a letter saying:  “ ‘Your administration of NRA is one of the tragedies of the age and perhaps, due to poor execution of the principles behind that great institution, we have lost the opportunity of a century.’ ”  [Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel, by Lawrence G. Foster, p. 211] General Hugh Johnson became a newspaper columnist, from which position he took potshots at his nemesis Robert Wood Johnson – calling him “ ‘…about the biggest pain in the neck that the NRA encountered under the cotton textile code’ ”  – because Johnson continued to advocate for shorter hours and higher wages.  [Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel, p. 227] Needless to say, Robert Wood Johnson’s progressive views were not shared by many people at the time.

Johnson’s frustration at the unpopularity of his ideas about corporate social responsibility and how to help the nation overcome the Depression led him to write a pamphlet called Try Reality in 1935.  This pamphlet contained the seeds of an idea that would become the cornerstone of Johnson & Johnson:  Our Credo.

* Interestingly enough, the standard modern work week is officially 40 hours as a legacy of New Deal legislation.  If Robert Wood Johnson’s ideas had won out, our standard work week might be 35 hours.

As a company that’s 122 years old, Johnson & Johnson has many traditions.  One of those traditions is having employees with many years of service, not just in New Brunswick…but as the Company grew, in operating companies across the world in locations as varied as the U.K., Mexico, Brazil, India, Australia and South Africa.  How old is that tradition?  It started in 1886, the year we were founded.

The New Additions to the Storehouse Buildings in 1912

With the opening of new storehouse buildings on Nielson Street in New Brunswick in 1912, Johnson & Johnson continued its tradition of inaugurating new buildings by having a reception and dance for employees.  This was done after the building was completed, but before the machinery was installed, so that there would be room for a celebration.  Once again, to recognize the Company’s large population of Hungarian employees, the Company brought back Prof. Chas. Mezei’s Hungarian Orchestra as one of two orchestras to play for employees during the dance.

The inside cover of the program for the 1912 reception and dance listed the “Roll of Honor,” employees who had 20 or more years of service with Johnson & Johnson…at a time when the Company itself had only been around for 26 years.  Here’s what the program book said:

“A striking feature of the conditions which prevail throughout the realm of Johnson & Johnson, is the relation between the management, their associates and employees. [sic] A long service is not uncommon in the ranks, and there are a number of persons who have been constantly employed from the inception of the business…They have virtually grown up with the business, and become imbued with the principles and the methods which govern its relationship to those with whom it comes in contact.  They are closely interwoven in the woof and warp of the business fabric.  All have conscientiously given their best efforts to the success of the enterprise, and this is what made it what it is.  Long service seems to be a distinctive feature in the history of the corporation.”  [April 20, 1912 Reception and Dance Souvenir Booklet, Opening of the New Storehouse Buildings.]

That last sentence was certainly accurate, since almost half of the original 1886 employees were still there in 1912.

In 1912 there were 35 employees who had been with the Company 20 years or more.  This included six employees (three men and three women) who had been with the Company since 1886, the year Johnson & Johnson was founded.  These earliest employees had been persuaded to leave Robert Wood Johnson’s previous business, Seabury & Johnson, and take a chance on joining a small startup business operating on the rented fourth floor of a former wallpaper factory next to the railroad tracks in New Brunswick, with the revolutionary and, to some, outlandish idea of making the first mass produced sterile surgical dressings to save lives in hospitals.  In 1912, the little startup was a constantly growing and very well respected business with several thousand employees.  (By the way, Fred Kilmer, his joining date listed here as 1888 instead of 1889, was one of those “Roll of Honor” employees.)

Early employees recommended the Company to their family and friends, and it was not unusual to find multiple generations of a family and/or multiple family members – brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins – employed here.   This was especially true in New Brunswick’s Hungarian community, where many of the city’s Hungarian residents worked for Johnson & Johnson and were fiercely loyal to the Company.

Two of the “Roll of Honor” employees, Elizabeth — (joined in 1886) and Gussie — (joined in 1892) had not only risen in the ranks to become department supervisors, but they were trained in first aid (a concept that Johnson & Johnson started) and were proud members of the Company’s First Aid staff, which provided help to employees who were taken ill or injured at work.  Joining them on the First Aid staff was a fairly new young 19-year old employee who would also go on to have a long career with the Company:  Robert Wood Johnson, the son of one of the founders.  He went on to lead Johnson & Johnson from 1932 to 1963, and made it into the decentralized, publicly-traded worldwide family of companies that we know today.

So if any readers — or their friends or family members — are long-time Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies employees, they are part of a tradition of long service that goes all the way back to the Company’s founding in 1886.