Earle Dickson lived in Highland Park, New Jersey and worked for  Johnson & Johnson (J&J), a company located across the Raritan River in New Brunswick. At J&J, he bought cotton that was used in making medical supplies.  Often, when his wife Josephine prepared dinner for him, she got a cut or a burn while cooking. Earle would cut a piece of cotton to cover the wound and then cut a piece of adhesive tape to hold the cotton in place. This was becoming tiresome. Should he hire a cook? No, he thought, that’s not the answer. So Earle took a long piece of adhesive tape and laid a strip of cotton down the center. Now he could just cut off a shorter piece when Josephine needed one. 

Earle took his idea to the Johnson brothers, who owned J&J. They liked Earle’s invention, and soon the first BAND-AID® adhesive bandages were being produced. Made by hand, BAND-AIDS® were not popular at first. Why? Maybe because they were three inches wide and eighteen inches long! BAND-AIDS® packages initially included instructions on how to cut them apart in order to use them. Now they come in many different sizes. Today, over 100 billion BAND-AIDS® have been sold.