Kilmer House

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

While we generally think of benchmarking as a modern concept, it’s something that has been around for a long time. (The name has its origins in the horizontal markings surveyors chiseled into stone buildings centuries ago in Europe.)  For a business, benchmarking is critical, so it comes as no surprise that getting out of the office to see what others are doing is a longstanding tradition at Johnson & Johnson.  In fact, in 1899, Fred Kilmer went to Europe on a working vacation to do just that:  benchmarking. In 1899, the U.K. (home to Sir Joseph Lister) and Germany (home to microbiology p

Today we take pristine white cotton swabs, cotton balls and sterile cotton dressings for granted, but over 125 years ago it was a very different story.  Cotton in the 1800s was not very useful as a dressing, and you wouldn’t have wanted to use it as a personal care item.  The natural oils in the plant fibers made it non-absorbent and it was, as Fred Kilmer described it, (you may want to put down your coffee while reading this one)  “…yellow and dirty...it was put up in wads, packed in any sort of a box or wrapped in loose paper.”   [RED CROSS® Notes, Series II, No. 9, 1899.  Published by John