Kilmer House

Sometimes a chance conversation can lead to unexpected things.  In Johnson & Johnson history, conversations have led to some very well-known products from our Family of Companies.  A conversation in the late 1800s between one of our founders and someone he met on vacation led to something that’s a part of modern life:  The First Aid Kit.  Here’s how it happened. Vintage 1930s First Aid Kit, from our archives One day in the late 1880s, Company founder Robert Wood Johnson was on a Denver & Rio Grande train heading west through the Rocky Mountains, on his way to a much anticipated vacatio

Surgery before it was sterile, with the surgeons in street clothing, and a complete lack of aseptic procedures. Although it seems hard to believe today, as recently as the late 1800s the concept that surgery should be sterile was still facing an uphill battle.  Some people found it hard to believe that invisible “germs” (as they were called) were causing the high rates of post-surgical infections.  Others (some surgeons included) still believed that infections weren’t caused by germs at all, which inclined them to view sterile surgery as an unnecessary affectation.  Surgeons who did want to tr

Sir Joseph Lister, from our archives This February marks the 100th anniversary of the passing of Sir Joseph Lister.  The father of modern antiseptic surgery, he was also the inspiration behind the founding of Johnson & Johnson.  It was Lister’s lecture at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition that led medicinal plaster maker Robert Wood Johnson and his brothers to start a company to make the first mass produced sterile surgical dressings and sterile sutures and actively promote the adoption of sterile surgery.  Today, non-sterile surgery would be unthinkable, but it wasn’t all that l

There's a popular saying that you can't put toothpaste back into a tube. But you CAN come up with the idea to put toothpaste into a tube, and do you know who was one of the first companies to do that? If you answered Johnson & Johnson, you would be correct! That toothpaste was Zonweiss, our first consumer product. Johnson & Johnson made it available for sale in collapsible metal tubes in 1889 - three and seven years before the oldest commonly accepted claims of 1892 and 1896 for that innovation. Here's the story. Zonweiss ad, 1886, from our archives The first ads for Zonweiss appeared

As readers of Kilmer House -- and The Duct Tape Guys’ popular website – know, duct tape was invented by a Johnson & Johnson operating company in response to a request from the U.S. military for a cloth-based, waterproof tape during World War II.  But have you ever wondered why the Army made that request, and who had the original idea for duct tape?  Well, wonder no more, thanks to Kilmer House reader Kari Santo, whose great grandmother Vesta Stoudt had the idea that led to duct tape. Meet Vesta Stoudt, whose idea led to duct tape! Photo from The Chicago Sunday Tribune, October 24th 1943 In