Kilmer House

While we generally think of benchmarking as a modern concept, it’s something that has been around for a long time. (The name has its origins in the horizontal markings surveyors chiseled into stone buildings centuries ago in Europe.)  For a business, benchmarking is critical, so it comes as no surprise that getting out of the office to see what others are doing is a longstanding tradition at Johnson & Johnson.  In fact, in 1899, Fred Kilmer went to Europe on a working vacation to do just that:  benchmarking. In 1899, the U.K. (home to Sir Joseph Lister) and Germany (home to microbiology p

Johnson & Johnson has been located in New Brunswick, New Jersey ever since a fortunate train journey brought Company founder James Wood Johnson to the city in January of 1886.  The former wallpaper factory building that Johnson rented met the needs of the new company, and New Brunswick turned out to be a very good location for a new business for many other reasons.  It had transportation (the railroad, the Delaware & Raritan Canal, the Raritan River, and stagecoach service), it had lots of potential future employees, and it was just bursting with suppliers.  New Brunswick in the late 1

Today we take pristine white cotton swabs, cotton balls and sterile cotton dressings for granted, but over 125 years ago it was a very different story.  Cotton in the 1800s was not very useful as a dressing, and you wouldn’t have wanted to use it as a personal care item.  The natural oils in the plant fibers made it non-absorbent and it was, as Fred Kilmer described it, (you may want to put down your coffee while reading this one)  “…yellow and dirty...it was put up in wads, packed in any sort of a box or wrapped in loose paper.”   [RED CROSS® Notes, Series II, No. 9, 1899.  Published by John

Built by Johnson & Johnson in 1926-1927, these buildings are still in use today.  They were among the first structures of their kind in their region to have indoor plumbing, electricity and hot water, and they changed the lives of the families who lived in them.  What were they?  A remarkable collection of homes near Gainesville, Georgia called Chicopee Village. In 1916, Johnson & Johnson acquired a 93-year-old company called The Chicopee Manufacturing Company – a famous textile mill that originally grew out of the Industrial Revolution and the need to make United States textile manuf

It’s as iconic and familiar as a Coca-Cola bottle, Levi’s jeans or, well, JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder.  From the Jazz Age to the 1990s, it was in virtually every American household and in many households around the world.  After people finished the product, they kept the package and repurposed it for many other uses….and people still keep and collect them today.  What is it?  A BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages tin! As readers of this blog know, BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages were invented in 1920 by a young employee, cotton buyer Earle Dickson.  He combined two early Johnson & Johnson prod

First Aid Kits are so central a part of modern life that it’s hard to imagine a time in which they didn’t exist.  But before Johnson & Johnson began making the first commercial first aid kits in 1888, people were on their own when it came to gathering and maintaining the right supplies to use in treating injuries and in knowing how to help someone in case of an injury.  A century and a quarter ago, that changed in a very social media-inspired way:  through a conversation. As this story from 1882 -- concerning our very own Fred Kilmer -- shows, when someone was injured before the era of fi

On July 17, Johnson & Johnson Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer Dominic Caruso attended a meeting of the New York Stock Exchange’s Century Club.  What’s the Century Club?  It’s a group of companies headquartered in the United States, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and founded a minimum of 100 years ago -- each of which is still thriving and innovating today.  Who’s in the club besides Johnson & Johnson, and what do they all have in common?  Read on to find out! Artist's representation of the first Johnson & Johnson building, 1886, from our archives. The

Infographics are everywhere today.  They’re colorful, easy to understand, they present information in a graphic, entertaining way, and they appeal to people who learn better visually rather than through the written word alone. If you need to educate and entertain at the same time, then infographics are your tool of choice.  But how could you educate people visually before the modern era of infographics?  You could do a comic book -- and that’s just what the LISTERINE® Brand did during the Silver Age of comics in 1956. LISTERINE® Antiseptic: comic book hero. The Silver Age of comics began in 1

Commercial television made its debut in 1939 as one of the innovations at the 1939 World’s Fair.  The fair’s opening was televised, complete with a speech by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- the first U.S. President to appear on television.  But television really didn’t take off until the early 1950s, when advances in technology made TV programs easier to produce and much more watchable.  Many advertisers initially were cautious about taking advantage of this new medium, but Johnson & Johnson, having been a creative advertiser throughout its history, made an early decision to become

As we celebrate Veterans Day in the U.S. and Remembrance Day elsewhere in the world, we salute the men and women who serve their countries. A Johnson & Johnson employee, "Somewhere in France," during World War I. From our archives. Johnson & Johnson has a long heritage of employees serving in the military, dating back to 1898, and the Company has supported the men and women who serve their countries for well over a century.  As the younger brothers of Union Army veterans, the three founders of Johnson & Johnson had tremendous respect for those who serve and a desire to do what the