CHAPTER 7
BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages

BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages are one of the most recognizable of the Company’s products. They were invented in 1920 by an employee named Earle Dickson, who worked as a cotton buyer. His wife Josephine was prone to kitchen accidents. Earle wanted a bandage his wife could apply herself, so he took two of the Company’s early products – adhesive tape and gauze – and combined them by laying out a long piece of surgical tape and placing a strip of gauze down the middle. To keep the adhesive from sticking, he covered it with crinoline fabric. Whenever his wife cut herself, she cut a piece