Kilmer House

Some of the most enduring images from the history of Johnson & Johnson are those associated with the Company’s baby products.  Generations of families have used these products to care for their children, and consumer identification with them has been so strong that, despite the depth and breadth of its product lines, the Company has enjoyed a longstanding reputation as “the Baby Company.”  But the earliest products of Johnson & Johnson were medical products.  So how did we become known as “the Baby Company?”  Believe it or not, we owe it to the fact that  

The White House just announced the launch of a new public health initiative, text4baby.  My colleague Marc at the JNJBTW blog just did a post on it.  It’s the U.S.’s first ever free mobile health service and it provides timely expert health information for pregnant women and new mothers through SMS text messages.  Johnson & Johnson is one of the founding sponsors.  In 2010, this health information is being provided in a portable, easily accessible manner through technology; 108 years ago, Johnson & Johnson provided health information to expectant and new mothers in

How did being part owner of a cattle ranch lead one of the founders of Johnson & Johnson to develop the first First Aid kits?  During the 19th century, health care was hazardous at best and very little attention was paid to first aid and the proper treatment of wounds and injuries.  Robert Wood Johnson the first was part owner of a cattle ranch in Colorado, where he liked to spend vacations.  Johnson traveled to the ranch by train and, having an outgoing personality, he started a conversation with the chief surgeon of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway, who complained about the high acci

If things had turned out differently for James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson, two of the three brothers who founded Johnson & Johnson, they might be known for making not the first mass produced sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures, but typewriters.  Typewriters? An earlier post talked about Seabury & Johnson, older brother Robert Wood Johnson’s partnership, a well-respected medical products business of the late 1800s.  James and Edward both had joined Seabury & Johnson, but the increasing disagreements between the partners -- Robert Wood Johnson and Georg

Johnson & Johnson was started by James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson early in 1886 with 14 employees.  Once he was free of his obligations to Seabury & Johnson, Robert Wood Johnson the first joined the new company toward the end of the year.  Here’s a list of the 14 original Johnson & Johnson employees who worked in New Brunswick, in the first building:  W. H. Ritter James Smith Thomas Burley Elmer Briscoe Patrick Higgins Harry Smith M. S. Denman Kate Coogan Maggie Smith Annie Keegan Elizabeth Cahill Teresa Smith Agnes King Lizzie Kennedy It is interesting to