Kilmer House

There's a popular saying that you can't put toothpaste back into a tube. But you CAN come up with the idea to put toothpaste into a tube, and do you know who was one of the first companies to do that? If you answered Johnson & Johnson, you would be correct! That toothpaste was Zonweiss, our first consumer product. Johnson & Johnson made it available for sale in collapsible metal tubes in 1889 - three and seven years before the oldest commonly accepted claims of 1892 and 1896 for that innovation. Here's the story. Zonweiss ad, 1886, from our archives The first ads for Zonweiss appeared

Some famous fathers and sons in Johnson & Johnson history: from left, Company founder Robert Wood Johnson and his son, General Robert Wood Johnson; Fred Kilmer and his son Joyce Kilmer When you think of Johnson & Johnson, probably the most enduring image that comes to mind is that of a mother and baby.  Mothers and babies have been a feature of our consumer advertising for 90 years, beginning with print ads and encompassing some very classic television commercials.  But fathers have also played a significant role in Johnson & Johnson history. Robert Wood Johnson Company founder Rob

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

It’s a cold January day in 1886, exactly 130 years ago. James Wood Johnson, one of the founders of Johnson & Johnson, is on a train heading from New York to Philadelphia. Early in 1885,  Johnson and his brothers Robert and Edward had left their former company Seabury & Johnson with the intention of starting a new business, and James was looking for a location. He was on a westbound Pennsylvania Railroad train from New York to Philadelphia. When the train stopped at a tiny station halfway through the journey, Johnson & Johnson found its hometown: the city of New Brunswick, New Jers