Kilmer House

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

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

John J. Heldrich John J. Heldrich, retired vice president of administration and retired member of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors at Johnson & Johnson, passed away this week at age 88.  Born in New Brunswick, N.J., during the Great Depression, Mr. Heldrich would later lead the transformation of the city based on a commitment to the community as outlined in the Johnson & Johnson Credo. John Heldrich was born January 15, 1926, in New Brunswick and was raised in Highland Park, across the Raritan River from Johnson & Johnson.  The youngest of five boys, he recalled playi

Giving back to the community is one of the oldest traditions at Johnson & Johnson.  It began in the company’s hometown of New Brunswick, New Jersey, and spread throughout the world as Johnson & Johnson expanded globally.  Our earliest records of helping the community previously have dated back to the 1898 donation of dressings to treat wounded soldiers, disaster relief after the Galveston Flood of 1900 and help for the citizens of San Francisco after the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.  But now that legacy of giving can be traced back much further:  to the spring of 1887 when Johnson

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