Kilmer House

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

As the old saying goes, the best place to hide something is in plain sight. That applies not only to missing items in detective novels, but to Johnson & Johnson history as well – specifically, to something as iconic as our first ever building.  Kilmer House readers will remember that we have two drawings of the first Johnson & Johnson building, but no actual, documented surviving photographs. Well, that’s about to change.  Are you ready? Here's the background to the story.  We have this well-known illustration: The first Johnson & Johnson building, by an unknown artist, from our a