From the archives

1907

In 1907, the same year this photograph was taken, women employees at Johnson & Johnson established the Laurel Club. The club was an organization for female employees that focused on wellness, education, and local philanthropy. Its clubhouse included onsite exercise facilities and offered a variety of classes, like dance and calisthenics. This photo features the club’s very first women’s basketball team.

1913

The company has a long history of encouraging employee wellness. Sports teams –both men’s and women’s – that competed in local industrial leagues began in the 1890s. this photograph features the 1913 men’s baseball team. During this era, Johnson & Johnson opened its first in-house exercise facility, which included a tennis court and an employee swimming pool.

1910

Women have been an integral part of Johnson & Johnson’s workforce since the company’s founding in 1886. Of the original 14 employees, eight were women. By the early 1900s, the company’s expansion meant that it employed several thousand workers. Among them were hundreds of women. This photograph features a group of women workers from that era near the company’s Powerhouse.

1930

Antiseptic gauze was among Johnson & Johnson’s first products in 1886. Originally, it was sterilized by hand, but as soon as technology allowed, the company designed an industrialized sterilization process. The company continued to make gauze almost a half century later when this photograph was taken. By the 1930s, large machines churned out large sheets of the cotton surgical product.

1908

To celebrate the company’s growth, founder Robert Wood Johnson held a reception for employees in the brand new Cotton Mill Extension Building before the manufacturing machinery was installed. The electrified manufacturing space was packed with employees and managers, and among the partygoers were Johnson & Johnson’s eight women supervisors. In that year, a quarter of the company’s departments were managed by women.

1915

During World War I, which began in 1914, Johnson & Johnson ran its factories around the clock to meet the booming demand for its sterile surgical products. Once the U.S. entered the conflict in 1917, many company employees enlisted for military service. With the shortage of men, women entered the workforce in record numbers to maintain the heightened production schedule.

1895

From its earliest years, the company was committed to utilizing the latest equipment. In this 1895 photograph, cutting-edge candlestick telephones (standing phones with separate ear and mouth pieces) and typewriters (a new technology for business), were in use at Johnson & Johnson. Company founder Robert Wood Johnson can also be seen in the office window at the right side of the photo.

1920

By 1920, the “J&J” logo was added to the men’s baseball uniforms. Though the team’s players spanned all levels, together they were a force to be reckoned with. In addition to practicing at Johnson & Johnson’s exercise facilities, the players trained on other nearby fields. The team regularly competed in a local league made up of industrial workers from the area’s many factories.

1876

Founder Robert Wood Johnson first listened to Sir Joseph Lister speak at the 1876 world’s fair and was deeply inspired by his antiseptic surgical methods. At the time, Johnson was working at a company he’d founded with his then-business partner, George Seabury. This document is a handwritten excerpt from a Seabury & Johnson board meeting during which Johnson passionately described Lister’s theory. It was this passion that ultimately drove him to leave Seabury & Johnson and launch Johnson & Johnson with his two brothers.

1900

Founder James Wood Johnson was a talented engineer whose machines powered the company’s first factories. Johnson also found the first Johnson & Johnson building on a fateful train ride through New Brunswick. In January of 1886, he spotted a “for rent” sign on a nearby factory while riding through the city. That building became Johnson & Johnson’s home later that year.

1900

Robert Wood Johnson was the eldest of the company’s three founding brothers. He drew inspiration for the company from English surgeon Sir Joseph Lister’s revolutionary antiseptic surgical techniques, which he first learned about at the 1876 world’s fair in Philadelphia. Johnson was a visionary who believed that sterile surgery was the future. He produced the first mass-made antiseptic surgical products to make it a reality.

1890

Along with his second wife, Evangeline, and his children, Robert Wood Johnson lived in a stunning Victorian mansion in New Brunswick called Gray Terrace. The house included a large library, greenhouses, and gardens. Its close proximity to Johnson & Johnson ensured Johnson could walk to work each day. The house was later sold to Rutgers University and was home to a fraternity. Though once a city landmark, the mansion fell into disrepair and was eventually torn down.