Kilmer House

We think of multi-language advertising as a modern phenomenon, but in fact at some companies it goes back decades – sometimes more than a century.   More than 100 years ago, Johnson & Johnson had an in-house Spanish-language advertising department that produced ads, correspondence and other materials for Latin America, the Spanish-speaking retail pharmacists who sold our products in the United States, and for Spanish speaking physicians. The earliest of these items date back to the late 1800s, shortly after we were founded. Top half of an undated very early sterile surgical dressings and

2009 is a big year for anniversaries at Johnson & Johnson.  For instance, it was 70 years ago (in 1939) that Dr. Philip Levine, working in our laboratories, discovered the human Rh factor.  It’s been 60 years (1949) since we opened affiliate companies in Portugal, France and Colombia.  It was 50 years ago (1959) that we formed our operating company Ethicon, Inc. out of our historic suture business.  It was 50 years ago that we acquired McNeil Laboratories.  And it was 90 years ago this year – in 1919 – that Johnson & Johnson opened its first affiliate company, and its first plant outsi