Kilmer House

What do General Robert Wood Johnson, Frank Sinatra, Albert Einstein, Bruce Springsteen and Toni Morrison all have in common?  They are among the first group of inductees into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. Yesterday (May 4th) General Robert Wood Johnson was among the first group of New Jersey citizens inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, sharing the occasion with other notable New Jerseyans Harriet Tubman, Thomas Alva Edison, Albert Einstein, Clara Barton, Frank Sinatra, Buzz Aldrin, Yogi Berra, Malcolm Forbes, Vince Lombardi, General Norman Schwarzkopf, Toni Morrison, Bruce Springsteen,

Spooky postcards, the search for a missing explorer, a classic film noir, black cats, and a mysterious castle.  What do all of those things have to do with Johnson & Johnson?  Read on to find out, in a special Halloween edition of Nine More Things You Didn’t Know About Johnson & Johnson. Today we would just text, but a century ago, postcards were a popular way to send a short note to someone. Many towns and businesses (including Johnson & Johnson) printed photo postcards for that purpose.  Courtesy of the New Brunswick Free Public Library’s online postcard collection, here’s a spo

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 showers and baths with hot and cold wa

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 in the face of an im