Kilmer House

What do Johnson & Johnson and the Coca-Cola Company have in common?  For starters, they were both founded in 1886.   But there’s also something else you might not know:  for a short while, in the late 1800s, Johnson & Johnson made a cola drink.

In an earlier post, I mentioned some of the lesser-known and more unusual products made by Johnson & Johnson in its earliest days.  One of my favorites is Vino Kolafra, which was a tonic preparation made from cola nut extract in a sherry wine base.  It was made by a small subsidiary, the Brunswick Pharmacal Company from 1894 to 1896.   Here’s a Vino Kolafra ad from the November, 1896 issue of, oddly enough, Popular Science Magazine.

Ad for Vino Kolafra in Popular Science, 1896

Ads and pamphlets of the time referred to Vino Kolafra as “a Remarkable Tonic.”  And it certainly must have been, judging from its recommended uses.  According to the ads and pamphlets, Vino Kolafra was recommended for athletes, bicyclists (cycling was a popular hobby back then, too), for the weak and overworked, for people convalescing from an illness, for those with weak hearts, as a brain stimulant and nerve tonic, for hay fever, to ward off fatigue and relieve nervous strain, as a cure for drunkenness (especially remarkable, considering the sherry base!), as a reliever of melancholia and nervous depression, to give troops stamina on forced marches, and more.  And if that wasn’t enough, it also was said to help sufferers from indigestion, asthma, fevers, sea sickness, migraines, and the flu….and it was an aphrodisiac. 

Here’s a great photograph of two bicyclists drinking Vino Kolafra…from glasses they brought with them on their ride! 

Vino Kolafra wasn’t the only cola product we made.  The Company also sold Koloid Tablets, Essence of Carikola (which combined cola nut extract with extract from the carica papaya, a digestive aid) and Carikola Tablets.  All of the cola products were marked with a distinctive red pyramid on the label. 

Cola Products Range, 1890s 

In addition, the Company made Sparkling Kolafra, which was a carbonated drink made from cola nut extract added to sparkling water.   It was advertised as being superior to ginger ale, plain soda and root beer.  An 1897 advertising book for Sparkling Kolafra recommended it for:

Bicyclists, during long runs
Mountain Climbers, after reaching the top
Ministers, after long sermons
Doctors, after collecting bills
Editors, during excessive mental labor
Base-ball enthusiasts, during the game
Dancers, after two-hours waltzing
[1897 Advertising Book, A Tropical Tonic]

The success of Coca-Cola® and other, less reputable tonics, had fueled interest in tonic preparations in the late 19th century.   The Company responded by investigating the properties of kola nut extract (as they spelled it then) and coming up with products.

Vino Kolafra was discontinued when it was discovered that workers in the plant were also investigating its properties:  they were sampling the sherry base in increasing quantities.  

RED CROSS® Kidney Plaster Ad in Slavonic from 1912 

In recognition of the diversity of the world we live in, companies have been doing more and more multicultural advertising in recent years.  It’s a necessity for any company that wants to reach its customers, especially customers who for a variety of reasons are not being reached through traditional mainstream advertising.  And certainly what is true now also was true almost 100 years ago. 

Ad for Belladonna Plasters in Italian from 1912

The early part of the 1900s saw huge waves of immigration to the United States from Italy, Ireland, Central and Eastern Europe, and more.  Ellis Island in New York, one of the main gateways to the United States, welcomed over 12 million immigrants between 1892 and 1954.   They joined other immigrant communities from across the world that were spread throughout the U.S.   Most of the new arrivals either spoke no English or were struggling to learn it.  In the Nineteen-teens, Johnson & Johnson was attempting to reach those communities by providing advertising in up to 15 different languages to the retail druggists who sold our products across the U.S.

Ad for Kidney Plasters in Yiddish

These languages were German, Polish, Bohemian, Slavonic, Danish, Swedish, Italian, Yiddish, Spanish, Chinese, French, Hungarian, Finnish, Japanese, and Romanian in addition to the English-language materials the Company provided.  Fred Kilmer, the creator and editor of THE RED CROSS MESSENGER, the Company’s publication for retail pharmacists, wrote articles detailing the importance of these potential customers who in many instances were being overlooked.  In 1915, Kilmer wrote  “No man and no family can scarcely be said to be so unimportant that it is not worth while to seek their trade.”  [RCM Sept. 1915, Vol VIII, No. 3&4, p. 393]   Through the MESSENGERS, Johnson & Johnson offered folders (one-page information sheets that could be folded and mailed), show cards and “electros” (ad flats that were used in producing newspaper ads) to pharmacists in these languages. 

 Ad in German, 1912

Kilmer urged druggists to treat these new Americans with respect and make them feel welcome in their stores.  He wrote “…it is difficult and embarrassing to go into a store and buy an article if you cannot speak the language.”  [RCM Vol. V No. 6, Nov. 1912].  In another article from October of 1915, Kilmer suggested that pharmacists and their store clerks learn how to greet their local immigrant communities in their own languages, to put up maps of their countries of origin and, of course, to use the multi-language show cards that the Company made available.  The benefit for both the pharmacists and the Company would be loyal customers and increased sales. 

Some Johnson & Johnson Employees circa 1890s-1900

So…what made the people at Johnson & Johnson see the need to advertise to customers in the U.S. in different languages almost 100 years ago?  Partly, it was due to Fred Kilmer, who was always looking for more ways to reach customers.  And partly it may have been due to the Company’s own experience closer to home. 

Ad in Hungarian, 1912 

Johnson & Johnson was a major employer of Hungarian immigrants in New Brunswick, which had one of the largest Hungarian communities in the nation…to the extent that the Company became known as “Hungarian University.”  In those days, employee notices in our buildings were written both in English and Hungarian.  So the Johnson brothers and Fred Kilmer’s experiences with their employees also probably had a lot to do with their recognition of the need to reach people in a way that they would understand and appreciate.

A lot of people are interested in the connection between Johnson & Johnson, the Red Cross symbol, and the American Red Cross right now, so here’s some background on Johnson & Johnson and the Red Cross trademark.  The use of the Red Cross trademark by Johnson & Johnson on its products actually predates the Congressional charter of the American Red Cross by thirteen years.  Johnson & Johnson has used the Red Cross symbol since 1887 on products such as sterile gauze, dressings and cotton, sterile catgut sutures, adhesive plasters, first aid products, a variety of medicated plasters and a large number of other products. 

Early Cotton Products Circa 1887 Using Red Cross Trademark

 Early Sutures and Ligatures using Red Cross Trademark 

Cover of 1888 MODERN METHODS OF ANTISEPTIC WOUND TREATMENT

The Red Cross symbol, which came to identify many of the Company’s products, had become a valued trademark and a symbol of the products made by Johnson & Johnson. 

Clara Barton

The American National Red Cross was formed in the early 1880s by Clara Barton and was trying to get official recognition.  As a volunteer nurse, Barton had provided battlefield medical care to soldiers during the Civil War and had become involved with the International Committee of the Red Cross, leading her to found the American branch.  The organization received a Congressional charter in 1900 that officially recognized the group and mandated it to fulfill the provisions of the Geneva Convention by giving aid to victims of war and natural disasters.  Here’s a history of the American Red Cross. 

One of the requirements of signatories to the Geneva Convention was to protect the Red Cross insignia.  The U.S. had signed and approved the Geneva Convention in 1882, but the American Red Cross did not receive its first charter officially recognizing the organization until 1900.  The Congressional charter establishing the American Red Cross granted the ARC exclusive rights to use the Red Cross symbol.  The charter and an accompanying 1905 criminal statute allowed companies already using the symbol to continue using it. 

Red Cross Toothache Plasters

Before the Congressional charter in 1900, the Red Cross symbol was just a trademark in the U.S.  During that time, there were many products that used the Red Cross symbol as a trademark, such as Red Cross Cigars, Red Cross Whiskey, Red Cross Playing Cards, Red Cross Washing Machines, Red Cross Stoves, Red Cross Churns, Red Cross Dog Collars and Red Cross Soap. 

In 1895, as a contingency plan, Robert Wood Johnson the first and Fred Kilmer had started discussions with Clara Barton about the use of the Red Cross symbol.  The Johnson brothers asserted that they had established the right to use the trademark they had been using for eight years.  As a result, after a number of meetings, an agreement was signed between Johnson & Johnson and the American National Red Cross on January 29, 1895 that recognized Johnson & Johnson’s rights.  It stated “It is agreed that the said Johnson & Johnson are now and for a long time past have been entitled at common law and otherwise to the exclusive use of the symbol of a red cross as a trade-mark.”  The document was signed by R. W. Johnson and Clara Barton.  Finally, a decade after the agreement, President Theodore Roosevelt signed legislation protecting the American Red Cross’s use of the red cross mark, but at the same time reserving the rights of Johnson & Johnson to use it too. 

The first Johnson & Johnson price list was published on June 1, 1887 – 120 years ago this summer. It was a small booklet, measuring just 3 inches wide by 5 ½ inches tall, with a black cover that said “Johnson & Johnson – Price List” in gold letters. Despite the plainness of its cover, the price list illustrated three ways in which the Johnson brothers showed that they intended their business to be different than other medical products firms in business in the late 19th century.

The first way they accomplished this was by reprinting part of a letter on the first page. The correspondence was from Robert Wood Johnson, dated September 23, 1886, stating that he was free from any obligations to his former partnership, Seabury & Johnson, and that he had joined his brothers in the new business. Johnson wrote: “I now beg to state that I have joined the firm of Johnson & Johnson…Their Manufactory and Laboratory will be entirely under my charge. Respectfully, Robert W. Johnson.” At first glance, including a letter that was almost a year old might seem like an odd way to start off a price list, but it sent an important message: Seabury & Johnson was an established firm with a good reputation, so this let potential customers know that one of the driving forces behind that respected company was now leading Johnson & Johnson.

19th Century Drugstore Counter with Johnson & Johnson Plasters

Next, the price list showed doctors, surgeons and druggists (drugstores were where medical and personal care products were sold in those days) that Johnson & Johnson was manufacturing and selling some of the most popular products of the day, such as medicated plasters. However, the Johnson brothers went out of their way to note in the price list that they had improved the way in which these products worked.

“The attention of manufacturers of medicated Plasters has hitherto been directed chiefly to perfecting the mechanical excellence of their preparations, overlooking, to a certain extent, the real aim and end for which a plaster is made. We have made an important improvement in the quality and action of our Plasters…thus enabling a much larger proportion of the medicinal element of the plaster to be absorbed through the skin…thereby ensuring increased therapeutic effect.” [June 1, 1887 Johnson & Johnson Price list, Page 7]

But the biggest difference shown in the first Johnson & Johnson price list was the inclusion of a new product line: the first-ever commercially available aseptic surgical dressings. The Johnson brothers had taken Sir Joseph Lister’s principles of antiseptic surgery and expanded them into ready-made products, making it possible for surgeons to use, for the first time, a commercially available alternative to the unsterilized gauze and dressings they had been using on patients. The adoption of these new aseptic dressings greatly reduced surgical mortality rates.

The most interesting product in the 1887 price list was the Patented Linton Artificial Sponge. This was an antiseptic substitute for the ordinary sea sponges used and re-used by surgeons during surgery. The Linton Artificial Sponge consisted of antiseptic and absorbent cotton wrapped around an antiseptic capsule. When the surgeon applied a slight pressure to the sponge, the capsule broke, releasing the antiseptic agent into the cotton. This design not only ensured that the products was antiseptic, it also ensured that it only could be used once, thus protecting the patient.

The price list was carried by Company salesmen, then referred to as “travelers.” Here are some photos of early Johnson & Johnson travelers from the RED CROSS MESSENGER.

Alexander R. Lewis (above), the Company’s Secretary and Sales Manager

Albert Swisher (above), who joined the Company in 1898 as a traveler.

James Hatfield Rogers (above), one of the original members of the Company’s sales force.