Johnson
& Johnson, The New York Times
and a Rewarding Greenwich Village Dig
by
D. S. McGee
Robert Wood Johnson,
circa. 1890's.
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Throughout my life when I heard "Johnson & Johnson"
baby powder and Band-Aids came to mind and it never occurred
to me that one day I would associate the name with New
York City privy digging. Certainly not an historical dig
with fully loaded sacks of antique bottles and artifacts
being schlepped home on the subway at the end. At no time
had I envisioned an opportunity, or need for that matter,
to meet one of the heirs and help conduct an excavation
at his New York City residence. In light of the fact that we occasionally find Johnson
& Johnson bottles buried in old bottle dumps, at the
top portion of our New York City privy digs, and elsewhere,
a condensed history of Johnson & Johnson seems like
a good place to begin the story.
Robert Wood Johnson was born on February 15, 1845 in
Carbondale, Pa. In 1861 the teenaged Johnson left the
Pennsylvania countryside and made his way to Poughkeepsie,
NY, a small though bustling city situated along the Hudson
River in Dutchess County. There he worked as an apprentice
in his uncle’s apothecary, Wood & Tittamer located
on Market Street. Johnson spent three years learning the
complicated and tedious art of mixing medicinal plasters
under the tutelage of James Wood. "Probably no other branch
of the pharmaceutical art has been the occasion of so
much toil, anxiety and failure and discouragement before
any measure of success was met," the young Johnson would
say. He went on to become a retail pharmacist at the drug
firm of James Scott Aspinwall (formerly Rushton &
Aspinwall) in New York City and then became a drug broker.
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In 1873,
along with George Seabury, he formed the company of Seabury
and Johnson which manufactured bandages using a new formula
involving India rubber. Although the business prospered,
the stormy partnership split up a decade later. Around
1885 Johnson began developing and marketing the first
ready-made, ready-to-use surgical dressings. Johnson’s
brilliant production and marketing design was inspired
by the identification of airborne germs - "invisible assassins"
- by Sir Joseph Lister as a source of infection in operating
rooms. This labeling was not readily accepted by many
surgeons during the late nineteenth century. Despite the
general incredulity among surgeons and physicians Johnson
labored tirelessly and developed practical and marketable
applications for his designs. His inventions helped save
countless lives and paved the way for the vast fortunes
the Johnson family would create.
In 1886 Robert Wood Johnson joined with his brothers James
Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson and, in a defunct
wallpaper factory along the Raritan River in New Brunswick,
NJ, began manufacturing improved medicinal plasters. The
brothers incorporated as Johnson & Johnson in 1887.
Soon after, a revolutionary surgical dressing - ready-made,
individually wrapped and antiseptic - was developed and
marketed. The company then designed absorbent, cotton
and gauze surgical dressings that were mass produced and
shipped to virtually every physician and druggist nationwide.
Following this Johnson & Johnson published a book
titled "Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment"
and this publication attained the status of standard text
on antiseptic practices and held that position for many
years. Right about this time, the company’s products were
also being shipped all over the world bearing the distinctive
red cursive logo and red cross. Through their marketed
products, strong advertising and propaganda, the Johnson
& Johnson name became synonymous with good health.
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Wood & Tittamer
Druggists, Poughkeepsie N.Y. circa 1890's. Bottle was excavated
in an early 20th century
bottle dump in upstate NY
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Article in The Times regarding
the new Johnson & Johnson factory. |
Johnson
& Johnson applied their considerable resources to
the task of designing and marketing the first, first-aid
kit. The impetus for the production of these early kits
was railway and factory injuries. The company brought
the first-aid kit to market in 1890. The kit consisted
of a large wooden case with an ample assortment of contents:
antiseptic dressings, various surgical supplies, splints,
etc. along with a pamphlet explicitly detailing what to
do in the event of severed fingers, toes, and legs. The
booklet also explained the appropriate way to treat people
who had fainted. "If the accident is serious, send for
a surgeon at once. While waiting, keep cool." This first
aid kit was sold as "Johnson’s First Aid Cabinet." The
company went on to produce and sell, numerous variations
of the first aid kit.
By 1892,
Johnson & Johnson’s commercial success with sterile
gauze dressings led to the company’s slogan: "The Most
Trusted Name in Surgical Dressings." Soon after this,
baby powder was introduced onto the burgeoning medical
supply market. This product was the direct result of a
patient complaining of skin irritation caused by the use
of a medicated plaster. From then on a can of talc was
included with the orders of certain plasters. By 1894,
as a result of customer requests, baby powder could be
purchased separately from the medicated plasters. Next
an improved sterilizing technique for catgut sutures was
developed and perfected in 1897. This new product brought
an appreciative response from physicians. "As to sutures,
I have used common sewing thread many times in lieu of
anything better, and oh dear how I as well as the patient
counted the days when they had to be removed." Shortly
after this, physicians would have their pick of nine types
of catgut and twenty-one types of silk sutures from Johnson
& Johnson.
In 1899, Johnson & Johnson along with leading surgeons
developed and introduced the zinc-oxide type of adhesive
plaster. Due to its quick sticking quality and overall
greater strength, this type of plaster became widely used
by surgeons.
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Johnson
& Johnson had grown to such a degree by the turn of
the century that they shipped eighty percent of the surgical
supplies used to treat victims after the great San Francisco
earthquake of 1906. This continued during World War I
as Johnson & Johnson shipped huge quantities of surgical
and first aid supplies for the war effort.
In 1910
Robert Wood Johnson died. He was the company’s first president
and established Johnson & Johnson as a leader in the
medical products industry. He was succeeded by his brother
James Wood Johnson who ran the company until 1932. In the decade
following Robert Wood’s death, one of the most recognized
contributions to first aid, the Band-Aid Brand Adhesive
Bandage was introduced by Johnson & Johnson (along
with Johnson’s baby cream) in 1921.
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Antiseptic Treatment booklet. |
An early Johnson's Baby Powder. |
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Johnson
& Johnson branched out internationally in 1919 with
its first affiliate in Canada. By 1924 Johnson & Johnson
created Johnson & Johnson Ltd. in Great Britain. This
was their first overseas affiliate.
In 1932 Robert Wood Johnson Jr. took over direction of
the company. During World War II he was made brigadier
general for his manufacturing accomplishments, which contributed
to the war effort immensely. Forever after he was referred
to as "General Johnson" or "The General" (by his employees
and acquaintances alike). The title stuck with him apparently
due to his rather militant, dictatorial, iron-fisted and
tyrannical way of directing Johnson & Johnson and
his personal life.
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An early illustration
of the Johnson & Johnson factories and laboratories in New Brunswick,
N.J.
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General
Johnson remained active in the company until his death
in 1968 at the age of seventy-four. His estate, valued
at over 1 billion dollars, was donated to the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation. This is one of the largest
private charitable organizations devoted to improving
health and health care in the United States. The Foundation
is not connected to any corporation.
In 1944
Johnson & Johnson’s stock went public with an initial
three way split: one third to Robert Wood Jr., one third
to his brother, John Seward (referred to as Seward for
most of his life) and one third placed on the open market.
Seward Johnson
took over as vice president of Johnson & Johnson
after World War II. By 1967 his stock alone was worth
$91 million. In 1977 New Jersey Monthly wrote that Seward
was the wealthiest man in the state, placing his fortune
at $350 million. One of his sons also named John Seward
Johnson but referred to as "Junior" or "Seward", was
made heir and trustee in 1980. Seward Johnson Sr. died
on May 22, 1983 with an estate valued at over $400 million.
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The
company's holdings, affiliates and alliances today are
literally too numerous to mention here. One notable acquisition
of recent years was of DePuy, Inc., a $3.7 billion cash
transaction. In 2002 the company bought drug and delivery
system maker ALZA for more than $12 billion. Not too shabby
for a company known for its marketing of Band-Aids and
baby powder! Johnson & Johnson's corporate headquarters
is still located in New Brunswick, NJ where it has been
for over 110 years, which brings us to 1999, the year
of the Johnson dig.
At
this point in our digging careers, The New York Times
asked if they could come on a dig. If the story was
done well the publicity would be of benefit all around,
so why not. Then they informed us that the site would
have to be located somewhere in Manhattan. Hearing this,
the excitement level dropped considerably. At that time,
and still today, potential digging sites in New York
City were being torn up by backhoes and bulldozers,
without even a perfunctory thought to history or artifacts
and old bottles. Typically, we would roam the city in
our spare time, on foot or by car, looking for building
demolitions and renovations in old neighborhoods, only
to find that many of the backyards were already under
construction, or the dirt and all it once contained
had been trucked away to undisclosed, remote landfills.
In this respect lining up a privy dig for The New York
Times was going to be more challenging than usual.
On
several occasions during the past year an acquaintance
remarked that he knew Seward Johnson (the grandson of
Robert Wood Johnson), in fact, they had mutual friends.
He was in the process of renovating his home in The
Village. Or had he already renovated it? Would he actually
allow a dig on his property? No one knew for sure but
the general idea was to get rolling on it as quickly
as possible and see what the story actually was.
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The Johnson house, a prime location
where more than 120 intact antique
bottles from the 1840s-70s were unearthed, just one day
before major
backyard renovation was underway. |
Admittedly,
I knew nothing then about the Johnson & Johnson company
and reflexively assumed that whoever carried the family
name would not be sitting at home waiting for edgy Historical
Diggers to call. Those of us consumed with digging New
York City's privies (or wells as we refer to them). So,
with basically no other viable prospects at that exact
moment we began efforts to get in touch with him as directly
as possible.
Eventually
we learned through the grapevine that the house renovation
was completed but the yard had not been done over during
that phase. It was reported that Johnson said he had
"no idea" if the privy had been destroyed
during the remodeling process but probing for it was
fine as long as we got started quickly. Pulses jumped
considerably at this invigorating news!
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Looking south from the end of
the street the dig was on. |
Nina, The New York Times reporter, called again and
reiterated that if I could not locate a site soon her
boss was going to send the crew on another assignment
and this particular story about New York City privy-digging
in Manhattan, would never be told. I informed her that
one of the members of our group had just gotten permission
to probe a site in Greenwich Village and that the house
was built in the mid-nineteenth century. She was clearly
aroused after hearing this latest development and said
to notify her as soon as the excavation was "firmly
scheduled". The only day available for us turned
out to be the absolute last day possible to get into the
yard and get things started before it was...permanently
altered.
A scant assemblage of two made it to the Johnson home
that morning to dig. After an hour or so we were able
to locate the privy walls with our probes despite all
the renovation materials scattered around the backyard,
and the inherent lack of visual boundaries on the entire
block; a "Garden Block" as some refer to them
here, complete with intersecting property lines concealed
by endless vines, shrubbery, flower beds, trees, etc.
Additionally, the privy-vault (the well) was uncharacteristically
situated just fifteen feet from the rear of the house;
arguably one could honestly say it was 'right out the
back door' as some tend to be every now and then. Soon after I knew we had located the privy, I opened
the iron gate and started through the shadowy, narrow
horsewalk which led to the street, to get supplies. Curiously
I bumped right into someone who was headed straight for
the spot we had just probed in.
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She turned out to be the backyard renovation foreman,
working for a local landscaping outfit as it were. Much
to our shock and dismay her crew had a contract to begin
digging then and subsequently arrived that morning with
every intention and clearly ample motivation, to get their
project underway. The only questions on our minds during
those chaotic moments were, would Johnson be sympathetic
to our needs or not, did he even care one way or the other
who got to work that day, and, more importantly, could
he be located fast enough to render a favorable outcome?
On top of this, moments earlier we had gotten off the
phone with Nina and convinced her that "we just located
the well…we're in a privy!"
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Aware of how difficult this particular site-owner was
to get a hold of, particularly at the last minute, and hearing
that we were "in the way", things seemed considerably
hopeless. The scheduled excavation appeared to be a wash,
canceled permanently! Thus The New York Times would only
get to tell the story of what happens when a backyard privy
is destroyed, dug through unconsciously, by loathsome paid
workers. A nightmarish hour passed then someone finally
got in touch with him and explained what was happening.
In the end an arrangement was made to have the landscapers
begin later.
By this time the photographer and reporter were interested
in seeing some decent artifacts. Goading us on they reiterated
that without photographs and something worthwhile to write
about...there might not be a story in Sunday’s paper. Having been
more or less compelled to shift into high gear or else,
and after three or four hours of energetic digging, our
sweat-producing activities bore unmistakable signs of kitchen
refuse from within the confines of the subterranean vault:
food bones, oyster shells, stove ash, etc. A short while
later, an object for the journalists to gape at, an oxidized
wine bottle from the 1880’s. Then standing straight up,
in the ash exactly how it had been deposited 125 years earlier,
a free-blown, olive oil bottle, made of paper thin glass.
I looked up from the five foot hole to see if anyone else
sensed my anticipation. I had an impression that, despite
earlier challenges, the dig would turn out to be worthwhile.
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Digging several feet above base level
in a remarkable NYC privy.
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| At this
point the digging revealed plain, smooth based bottles from
the 1870’s-80’s and every now and then something embossed
or otherwise interesting: a stoneware mustard pot with black
and white lettering, "Moutarde de Maille (France)"; a milk
glass perfume bottle, C.W. Laird Perfumer Broadway N.Y.;
an aqua medicine, R.R.R. Radway & Co. N.Y.; another
mustard pot, S. Cearns’s No. 13 Chapel St. Liverpool; a
R. Low & Son Perfumers 330 Strand London, stoneware;
an ointment jar, X. Bazin Phil. Clear glass; two identical
pot lid bases, J.B. Thorn Chemist London, John Tarrant N.Y.
Sole Agent for the U.S.; a dark blue and white, cold cream
pot and lid, Wedgewood style, etc. |
An assortment of bottles and
artifacts from varying periods seen getting their first
breath of fresh air in nearly a century and a half, inside
this New York City privy "well".
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Some of
the first bottles and artifacts discovered from the earlier
"throw-away" period were two Civil War era sodas or ales,
and several clay pipes. Those first embossed bottles were
Engeman & Hubener N.Y., one dated 1861 and the other
1862. Soon after one, "Balm of a Thousand Flowers" appeared
in the well-stocked ash fill. Continuing on, several more
bottles were discovered: a pontiled R.R.R. Radway; a smooth
based, fancy styled, peppersauce bottle, and then a beautiful,
sapphire colored, soda/ale bottle "S. Hickerson 55 Clarkson
St. N.Y." made just after the pontil rod became obsolete
in bottle manufacturing.
Later we discovered the same Hickerson bottle in aqua
and pontiled, along with three W. P. & Co. porters
made in the 1860’s. Next a Distilled Dew bottle also from
the 1860’s, then three Rowlands Macassar Oil bottles made
of flint glass, and a pontiled "Barry’s Tricopherous for
hair and skin."
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During the late afternoon all of the bottles discovered
were pontiled and this welcome change stayed with
us for the remainder of the dig. The well was jam
packed with stuff. Numerous bucketful's of ash spilling
over with broken bottles, tableware, redware plates,
and more were continuously hoisted up from the ever
deepening hole. This gave the reporter and the photographer
lots of action to work with. Upon discovering an
artifact, it would be held up for a photo and then
explained. They documented many items and seemed
enthused by our work.
Finally the journalists left for the day and we
could focus on the dig uninterrupted. Evening approached
but it was still light out because of the time of
year. Then the discovery of a damaged, colored medicine
bottle was made. The bottle turned out to be "Hyatt’s
Infallible Life Balsam." Despite its cracks we were
excited by the find and it gave hope for what might
be discovered later. Soon after another Barry’s
appeared, then the intact remains of a hypodermic
syringe, and a puff style bottle that was black-amethyst.
Then another, identical seeming bottle…which turned
out to be soil-blackened flint glass. After this
two more "Hyatt’s" were unearthed with holes in
them. Right after that a "Phalon’s magic hair dye
# 2" was found and then a small pickle/honey bottle
with overall latticework relief on its sunken panels,
then a stoneware beer bottle inscribed "John Edwards
N.Y. 1854", etc.
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Flawless example of "Hyatt's
Infallible Life Balsam", exactly as it appeared
only moments after being discovered near the bottom
half of the privy.
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Having
accomplished nearly all that two sufficiently knackered
diggers could hope for in one long day, the eight foot
hole was covered for the night.
In the morning, the emerging sun barely above the towering
skyline, the gaping privy uncovered, and the bottle digging
back in full swing, the Johnson's arrived. The journalists
would return only sporadically the second day and the
Johnson's less inquisitive presence allowed us to focus
exclusively on the work. At times he and his wife were
genuinely fascinated by the accumulation of objects salvaged
from one of their own backyards but in the end neither
of them expressed too much interest in keeping the dirt-encrusted
items we were uncovering regularly.
After
the long break several buckets of material from the mid
19th Century were removed. Then the undisturbed refuse
layer reemerged and a seemingly endless supply of bottles
and artifacts from the period were discovered. Historically
many of the items were common: one half dozen free blown
olive oil bottles; numerous puffs and laundry bluing style
containers; nearly forty small pontiled bottles that were
used for ink and medicine; another hypodermic syringe,
several black glass bottles for ale and whiskey; a small
D.L. Ormsby stoneware beer bottle; a quart size Hackmann
& Hulle stoneware beer bottle; one Dr. D.C. Kellinger
N.Y.; etc. And then a sparkling mint soda bottle, "P.
Kellet Newark, N.J. 1857" in rich dark aqua, along
with the remains of yet another "Hyatt's Infallible
Life Balsam."
The
remainder of the second day was consumed with the work
of sifting the well contents for small objects and missing
pieces from broken plates, bowls, etc., things that might
be important for later reconstruction projects. That task
along with filling in the hole lasted well into the night.
Spirits remained high throughout this time due to the
discovery of a flawless "Hyatt's Infallible Life
Balsam" in deep blue green.
The
profusion of intact containers on this historical excavation
and the accompanying exhilaration throughout the entire
adventure, was a fine example of the rare occasion when
the rewards match the efforts...we stopped counting the
bottles when the tally reached 120.
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Intact bottles
from the Johnson
privy dig, circa 1840s-1870s.
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A well deserved thanks goes to Mya Chen Whitney for her invaluable
research assistance.
References
- Foster, L. (1999). Robert Wood Johnson: The
gentleman rebel. State College PA: Lillian
Press.
- Goldsmith, B. (1987). Johnson versus
Johnson. New York: Knopf.
- Hoover’s Handbook of American Business
2001. (2000). Austin, TX: Hoover’s Business
Press.
- Hoover’s Handbook of American Business
2003. (2002). Austin, TX: Hoover’s Business
Press.
- Johnson, Barbara Piaseka. (n.d.) In wic.org.
Retrieved May 20, 2003 from
http://www.wic.org/bio/johnson.htm
- Johnson, Robert Wood. (2002). In The New
Encycopaedia Britannica (Vol. 6, p. 595).
Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
- Johnson, Robert Wood. (2000). In World
Book Encyclopaedia (Vol. 11, p. 154).
Chicago: World Book Encyclopaedia.
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- Johnson
& Johnson. (1990). In Academic
American Encyclopaedia (Vol. 16). Danbury,
CT: Grolier Incorporated.
- Johnson & Johnson. (1986). Johnson &
Johnson – A company that cares – 100 year
illustrated history. New Brunswick, NJ:
Johnson & Johnson.
- Johnson & Johnson. (n.d.). In jnj.com.
Retrieved May 4, 2003 from
http://www.jnj.com/
- Margolick, D. (1993). Undue influence: The
epic battle for the Johnson & Johnson
fortune. New York: William Morrow &
Company.
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (n.d.) In
rwjf.org. Retrieved May 12, 2003 from
http://www.rwjf.org/
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