For Earle Ensign Dickson, inventing the Band-Aid brand adhesive bandage was a labor of love.

Yet even he could not have foreseen that Band-Aids would become one of the most successful consumer brands in marketing history.

Earle Dickson (1892-1961) married his sweetheart, Josephine Frances Knight, on Dec. 6, 1917. At the time, he worked as a young cotton buyer for Johnson & Johnson. (JNJ)

Josephine Dickson became a devoted wife and mother of two sons, and she enjoyed cooking for the family. But she suffered repeated accidents in which she cut or burned her fingers while preparing meals.

Earle grew distraught at his wife's misfortunes in the kitchen. He was concerned that she couldn't bandage herself while he was away at work. When he was at home, he had a hard time affixing the big bandages to her small fingers.

In 1920, Dickson came up with an idea that was quite simple yet highly creative. He developed the first self-adhesive bandage by affixing a small piece of gauze to the center of a strip of surgical tape. A covering of crinoline cloth kept the bandage sterile until it went on a wound.

Josephine could simply cut off a section of tape, peel off the crinoline and wrap her finger herself.

Voila, the Band-Aid was invented.

Still, the Band-Aid was not a fast hit. Dickson had to be patient and persistent. Fortunately, he worked at a firm with ample resources. Johnson & Johnson was already a maker of large cotton and gauze bandages for hospitals and the military.

Into It

J&J co-founder Robert Wood Johnson quickly grasped the value of Dickson's new product. When Dickson pitched his idea, "the boys in the front office loved the concept," as Johnson recalled.

Initial sales were poor. When the product came out in 1921, total revenue for the year was only $3,000 — $34,000 in today's dollars.

Officials at the company's advertising firm, Young & Rubicam, grew leery about Band-Aid's growth prospects, according to Lawrence Foster, Johnson's biographer and the former public relations chief at J&J.

"The ad agency didn't think the Band-Aid was going to sell, so they took a rather dim view of the product," Foster told IBD. "Obviously, they were wrong."

The Band-Aid would emerge as the leader in adhesive bandages. It would grow so big, the brand name would become synonymous with the bandage category itself — much like ChapStick, Kleenex and Scotch tape in their product categories.

Perhaps Band-Aids were slow to catch on due to their original size. The first product was 2.5 inches wide and 18 inches long.

Salesmen would carry scissors with them to doctor's offices and drugstores. Once there, they would snip off a length of the strip to demonstrate the product.

In 1924, Johnson & Johnson built new machines to mass-produce Band-Aids as individual adhesive bandages, rather than long strips. This manufacturing breakthrough greatly improved sales.

Johnson & Johnson also came up with some clever promotions. One salesman sent the product to every butcher in Cleveland for free.

Then the company gave away free Band-Aids to the U.S. military and the Boy Scouts of America.

Through the years, J&J honed its marketing strategy with a patriotic color scheme on the package.

The company actively promoted hygiene education and Band-Aids through point-of-sale displays, short films, pamphlets and booklets. Soon, medicine cabinets nationwide were stocked with familiar tin boxes of Band-Aids.

Dorothea Bartow, 87, of East Brunswick, N.J., was a secretary who worked under Dickson in the J&J hospital division from 1939 to 1943. Bartow saw Dickson in the office every workday for years. "He was a quiet, distinguished man, and was well respected within the company," she recalled in an e-mail.

By 1929, the Band-Aid was a hot seller and Dickson was elected to the J&J board of directors. Three years later, the company promoted him to vice president — making his parents extremely proud.

Earle was born to Richard and Minnie Dickson in rural Grandview, Tenn., on Oct. 10, 1892. He lived there only as a baby, along with his brother Malcolm, before the family moved to Holyoke, Mass.

Dickson attended Amherst College, then transferred to Yale University, graduating in 1913. The next year he earned another degree from Massachusetts' Lowell Textile School, which later became the Lowell Technological Institute.

Dickson started his career at Bliss Fabian Co., a Boston textile firm.

In 1916 he joined J&J through its Chicopee (Mass.) Manufacturing Co. unit. He later moved to the parent firm's headquarters in New Brunswick, N.J.

During World War I, Dickson served in the Army and did special duty for the War Department. He returned to J&J in 1919 and set up its first hospital division in 1925.

He also worked with the Federal Bureau of Standards to craft national standards for surgical gauze and adhesive products.

Over the decades, Band-Aids evolved into many formats as Johnson & Johnson improved the product line. Early upgrades included aeration holes, antiseptic pads, waterproof coatings, glassine wrappers and junior sizes.

Special red tear strings debuted in 1940 to open the wrappers. Sheer vinyl Band-Aids appeared in 1958.

More recently, Band-Aids have morphed into multiple types, shapes, colors and sizes. They include super-stick adhesives for tough jobs, flexible plastics that bend easily with the skin, antibiotic coatings, and gels to heal painful blisters. J&J released its first Liquid Bandages in 2002.

Dickson retired in 1957 before dying at age 68 on Sept. 21, 1961, at Middlesex General Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J. He had served as a trustee at the hospital for more than 30 years.

By then, his invention was truly a global phenomenon. In 2001, Johnson & Johnson reached a remarkable milestone by turning out the 100 billionth Band-Aid.

Devotion And Invention

In many ways, Dickson's lasting impact was due to his lifelong devotion to his wife, according to Susan Tang, U.S. product director for Band-Aid brands.

That kind of familial love became a hallmark of the brand itself, much as when young parents find out how well a Band-Aid can comfort a child with a scraped knee.

Tang says such an enduring emotional legacy should be traced back to Earle's deep affection for Josephine.

"The Band-Aid has become a universal symbol of care and love, of making it all better, and that is what is so emotionally endearing about the product," she told IBD. "It's the whole act of putting on the bandage, just as Earle did for his wife."


BY J. BONASIA