Kilmer House

There’s a saying that the best place to hide something is in plain sight.  Anyone who has frantically tried to find his or her keys certainly can attest to that being the case.  But did you know that it’s also true for Johnson & Johnson history?  Here are some surprising people and things from Johnson & Johnson history that have been hiding in plain sight. Drawing of the first Johnson & Johnson building, 1886. From our archives.  Wouldn't it be great to have a photograph too? Well, as it turns out, we have more photos than we thought... 1.  The first Johnson & Johnson building:

One of the most frequent questions generated by a recent post (10 Things You Didn’t Know About J&J) is “Did Johnson & Johnson REALLY have a swimming pool for employees?”  And the answer is:  yes, we did, in the Nineteen-teens.  (No, we don’t still have the pool.  That’s the next most frequently asked question.) Here’s a picture of the pool: Swimming Pool for Employees in the Cotton Mill, 1913. It was located in the Cotton Mill, and had separate hours for male and female employees.  (This was the Nineteen-teens, you know.)  In addition, there were sho

Hmmm…it seems Kilmer House is back to the water theme this week.  So, here goes: How did a serious water shortage in the Nineteen-teens end up benefiting the residents of New Brunswick?  And what did Johnson & Johnson have to do with that? In the Nineteen-teens, the City of New Brunswick faced a problem.  The city got its water supply from a local brook, and the brook was going dry.  The only other water source nearby – the river -- was too muddy to use without treating the water first….and anyway, it would take too much time to build a filtration plant to do any good

Frederick Barnett Kilmer Fred Kilmer, the Company’s Chief Scientific Officer from 1889 to 1934, took his role as a scientist, writer, guardian of public health and educator of the public very seriously.  But he was not against ever so subtly lightening things up a little bit every now and then.  Here’s an example from a 1914 issue of THE RED CROSS MESSENGER.  Sandwiched between articles on the importance of First Aid, advice for druggists on how to effectively decorate drugstore windows to increase their business, and the proper use of Synol Soap, the Company’s antibacterial so

In 1934, Johnson & Johnson built a new plant in Central New Jersey for the Company’s newest affiliate company, Personal Products Company.  What did that plant have in common with the recently completed Empire State Building?  It certainly wasn’t height.  And it wasn’t part of the climax of a famous movie, either.    Give up?  The buildings had the same architect.  It was all part of Robert Wood Johnson’s “factories can be beautiful” plan.  That architectural firm that built the plant was Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, who in 1934 had just compl

Artist’s Rendering of the First Johnson & Johnson Building The beginning of January 2009 marks 123 years since James Wood Johnson got off a New York to Philadelphia train in New Brunswick, New Jersey to rent space for a new company:  Johnson & Johnson.  Here’s the story: James Wood Johnson It was very early January of 1886…the first or second week of the month, 123 years ago.  James Wood Johnson, one of the founders of the Company, was a passenger on a Pennsylvania Railroad train going from New York to Philadelphia.  He and his brothers, Robert Wood Johnson and E

What did Johnson & Johnson have in common with Robert Livingston, one of the drafters of the Declaration of Independence? Give up?  They both ran steamboats on the Raritan River in New Brunswick.  And here’s another fact:  Livingston’s tenure as U.S. Minister to France from 1801 to 1804 would have an impact on Johnson & Johnson over 80 years later.  How, you ask?  Because Livingston teamed up with inventor Robert Fulton to invent…you guessed it:  the first working steamboat in Paris. So…what was Johnson & Johnson doing with steamboats?  Wasn’t it

This July marks the third anniversary of the Kilmer House blog.  The first post went up on July 12, 2006 – the first-ever blog post on the first-ever blog for Johnson & Johnson.  And now, three years later, to celebrate that milestone, I thought I’d take you on a behind the scenes tour of some Johnson & Johnson history that’s hidden in plain sight…if you know where to look.  So in honor of three years of Kilmer House, here’s my first video post: I also want to say a huge thank you to the Kilmer House community – all of you worldwide who read the blog, and everyone who