Kilmer House

The old Temple Radio Plant in Chicago It’s 1933 -- the depths of the Great Depression.  The economy is struggling, the U.S. has a staggering 25% unemployment rate, and the New Deal legislation is in its early stages.  Most of American industry is cutting back.  But for Johnson & Johnson, it’s time to open a plant in Chicago.  Like everywhere else, Chicago had been hit hard by the Depression, but 1933 did hold some bright spots.  Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry opened in 1933.  Chicago hosted the World’s Fair that year, highlighting a century of progr

In the earliest days of the Company, Johnson & Johnson was centered in the city of New Brunswick, where it still is headquartered today.  Although the research labs were located across the river in Highland Park, the plaster making facilities, warehouses, cotton mill, shipping and other facilities were located close to the river in New Brunswick.  Besides the Company’s World Headquarters (which still occupies roughly the same site at which the Company started), New Brunswick is home to other sites of historical significance to Johnson & Johnson.  Like most of their

A Design Classic! 1.  What do BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages have in common with the @ symbol on your computer keyboard?  They’re both part of the permanent design collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  Here’s the link to the BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandage entry on the MOMA design collection website.  (By the way, because the product is in the collection of an art museum, Earle Dickson, the inventor of BAND-AID®, is listed as the artist on the site!) 2.  There was a fourth Johnson in the early days of Johnson & Johnson!  William Johnso

In my last post, I mentioned Scientific Director Fred Kilmer’s Opera House Pharmacy, which was “very likely” on the on the corner of George and Albany Streets.  Here’s direct confirmation that his pharmacy was in fact on that corner, which is the corner of George and Albany that is across Albany Street from the 410 George Street Building.  Kilmer’s pharmacy was on the ground floor of the old Victorian-style Masonic Hall, whose main tenant was the New Brunswick Opera House.  This photo, which is reproduced here and also linked from Rutgers University’s Old New Brunswick site, cle

In recognition of the 100th anniversary of the passing of Johnson & Johnson founder Robert Wood Johnson in 1910, this is one of several posts looking at the earliest years of Johnson & Johnson, Robert Wood Johnson as our first president, and the Company’s first senior management transition. It’s 1887 and Johnson & Johnson has grown in just one year from 14 employees in one building to 125 employees in several buildings.  Our original building from 1886, the four-story former wallpaper factory, is now the plaster mill, filled with machinery designed by founder James Wood Johnso

A lot of people are interested in the connection between Johnson & Johnson, the Red Cross symbol, and the American Red Cross right now, so here’s some background on Johnson & Johnson and the Red Cross trademark.  The use of the Red Cross trademark by Johnson & Johnson on its products actually predates the Congressional charter of the American Red Cross by thirteen years.  Johnson & Johnson has used the Red Cross symbol since 1887 on products such as sterile gauze, dressings and cotton, sterile catgut sutures, adhesive plasters, first aid products, a variety of medicat

The year 1910 was a pivotal one for Johnson & Johnson. The company was doing well and growing, with a variety of product lines that included medicated plasters, sterile surgical dressings and sutures, but also products for women’s health, baby products, hygiene and personal care products, and more.   Robert Wood Johnson was president of the company, and with his brother James, Fred Kilmer and others, he steered the direction of Johnson & Johnson.  From the time he was five years old, Robert Wood Johnson’s eldest son Robert had accompanied his father to bu

In my last post, I talked about how the sudden death of Robert Wood Johnson the first caused shock and sadness among his family and his employees.  It was a measure of Johnson’s foresight and planning that he left Johnson & Johnson in very good hands, with strong management who could continue to guide and grow the company that he and his brothers built.  James Wood Johnson was elected President of the Company, and he soon had a new and unexpected employee:  his nephew, Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Undated Rutgers Prep Yearbook Picture of Robert Wood Johnson Young Robert had alw

In the late 1940s, a very well-known American artist had a connection to Johnson & Johnson first aid products.  (And no, it wasn’t because the artist was accident-prone.)  This artist had paintings in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and her works were widely exhibited in other places.  The artist was Gladys Rockmore Davis, and she was a noted painter of children and other subjects.  In 1948, Johnson & Johnson commissioned Davis to do a series of original paintings of children for an advertising campaign for the Company’s fir

My colleague Marc who writes the JNJBTW blog mentioned something interesting in a recent post: quality correspondents. He talks about a company that, in the interests of transparency and social media, has enlisted some of its customers to tour its facilities and see first-hand how its products are made, and then to write about it on the company’s website. It’s an interesting concept. In fact, there was a company doing just that almost 100 years ago. And the company was…Johnson & Johnson. October, 1916 RED CROSS MESSENGER, "The Factory Behind the Goods" Johnson & Johnson published THE