19. An inept cook led to the invention of the adhesive bandage
Earle Dickson was newly married in 1920. His wife, Josephine, exhibited enthusiasm for her new duties as a housewife, but in the kitchen demonstrated a certain lack of… aptitude. Earle often came home to find his dinner prepared, but his wife bearing a new cut, or scrape, or burn, as a result of her efforts. What was worse was Josephine often experienced difficulties bandaging the wound, being alone at the time. Earle, while presumably expressing sympathy to his bride for her difficulties, decided to at least help her solve the problem of covering the wounds. He took adhesive tape and affixed cotton pads at intervals, covered the pads with crinoline, and cut them into ready-made bandages. When they proved successful as Josephine needed them, Earle decided to take the idea to his employer. Earle worked for Johnson & Johnson in Highland Park, New Jersey.
Johnson & Johnson developed the idea of adhesive bandages, and marketed them under the trademark BAND-AID. Other companies followed in the marketing of adhesive bandages, until scores, even hundreds of companies sold them under various names. But they became known almost universally as bandaids, an example of a trademark becoming genericized. Other examples include Kleenex for a facial tissue or Xerox for a photocopy. Earle Dickson eventually rose to a Vice President position with Johnson & Johnson. He retired in 1957. By then, over 1.5 billion adhesive bandages were sold annually. In 1951 Johnson & Johnson introduced decorated bandages. Since then, Johnson & Johnson alone has sold over 100 billion adhesive bandages of all types under the BAND-AID trademark, inspired by a young housewife with an unfortunate tendency to hurt herself in her kitchen.