Early Johnson & Johnson employees belonged to a variety of social clubs and groups, and took a wide range of classes offered by the Company.  The Company organized classes in hygiene, gymnastics, millinery (hat making), embroidery and English instruction.  At one point, up to two-thirds of our early employees were Hungarian immigrants, and employee notices and signs had to be written in both English and Hungarian.  Circa 1907, women employees at Johnson & Johnson had a basketball team, a Glee Club and a lending library, and also did charity work at a local New Brunswick orphanage.  Male employees belonged to clubs as well – as these photos from the “J&J Hikerage Club” show. 

One of the most fascinating people behind Johnson & Johnson was Dr. Fred B. Kilmer, who was the Director of Scientific Affairs for Johnson & Johnson for 40 years, starting in 1889.  Company Founder Robert Wood Johnson (who lived as well as worked in New Brunswick) became friendly with Dr. Kilmer when he visited Kilmer’s pharmacy — the Opera House Pharmacy — in downtown New Brunswick.  Besides being a scientist, Dr. Kilmer (a president of the New Jersey Pharmaceutical Association) understood marketing and promotion, and was a writer. Another of Kilmer’s customers at the pharmacy was the inventor Thomas Alva Edison, who bought supplies to use in his experiments at his lab in Menlo Park. 

The formation of the Coca-Cola Company in 1893 and its subsequent advertising campaigns helped spark interest in tonic preparations among the population of the United States.  Johnson & Johnson introduced Vino Kolafra in 1894, advertising it as a calmer of nerves, an imparter of strength, a convalescent aid and as encouraging workers to “do more work with less effort and better results.”  Vino Kolafra was discontinued when it was discovered that workers were indeed doing more than expected:  they were sampling the sherry base in increasing quantities.  

 

BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages are one of the most recognizable of the Company’s products.   They were invented in 1920 by an employee named Earle Dickson, who worked as a cotton buyer.  His wife Josephine was prone to kitchen accidents.  Earle wanted a bandage his wife could apply herself, so he took two of the Company’s early products – adhesive tape and gauze – and combined them by laying out a long piece of surgical tape and placing small pieces of gauze on it in intervals. To keep the adhesive from sticking, he covered it with crinoline fabric.  Whenever his wife cut herself, she cut a piece of the tape and gauze pad and used it as a bandage.  Dickson mentioned his invention at work, and a new product was born.   The first BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages went on the market in 1921, and were the first ready-made adhesive bandages that consumers could apply themselves.  Earle Dickson was made a vice president at Johnson & Johnson.

 Absorbent cotton products are some of the earliest products made by Johnson & Johnson.  Absorbent cotton was used in surgery and wound treatment. Prior to the availability of sterile cotton products, leftover cotton from the floor of the country’s cotton mills was used by surgeons to treat wounds and stop bleeding.  The products shown in the above photograph number among the first products of Johnson & Johnson, and include a variety of sterile cotton, either plain (in the blue wrapper) or infused with iodine (Iodoform Cotton) and other sterilizing agents. 

As the pioneer in antiseptic and sterile surgical dressings in America, Johnson & Johnson constantly developed new sterile products and also served as a source of information on new approaches to surgery and patient care. 

 

Aseptic gauze and cotton were among the first Johnson & Johnson products.  Many of these early products were impregnated with antiseptic agents or medication, and sealed in glass or metal containers to keep them sterile. These antiseptic gauzes and cottons helped revolutionize surgical care by greatly reducing mortality rates from surgical infection.  Many of the names of the Company’s early products, such as the ones above, were descriptive of the product or its ingredients.  Others — such as Dr. Grosvenor’s Bellcapsic Plaster — were named after physicians who contributed ideas for new products to the Company. 

While looking for a factory location for the new company early in 1886, he was riding a westbound Pennsylvania Railroad train through New Jersey.  When the train slowed down to cross the Raritan River, Johnson looked out the window and saw a “To Let” sign on a four-story factory building in New Brunswick.  Johnson ended up renting the fourth floor of the building, a former wallpaper factory, which became the first home of Johnson & Johnson.  Besides having a convenient building for rent, New Brunswick was a rail, coach, waterway and commercial hub midway between New York and Philadelphia, and was home to a variety of small industries — like rubber companies, a needle factory, and a maker of fruit jars.