Founded in Neenah, Wisconsin, in 1872 and based in the Las Colinas section of Irving, Texas, since 1985, the company operated its own paper mills around the world for decades, but closed the last of those in 2012.

In that same year the company began rapid expansion, purchasing land in a town then known as The Cedars for a new groundwood pulp plant designed by prominent paper mill architects D. H. & A.

Kimberly & Clark joined with The New York Times Company in 1926 to build a newsprint mill in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada.

Alongside Cadbury, Kimberly-Clark withdrew advertising support for Lou Grant in 1982, due to pressure from various conservative caucuses campaigning against star Ed Asner.

In 1991, Kimberly-Clark and The New York Times Company sold their jointly owned paper mill in Kapuskasing, Ontario.

Kimberly-Clark entered a joint venture with Buenos Aires-based Descartables Argentinos S.A. to produce personal care products in Argentina in 1994[14] and also bought the feminine hygiene unit of VP-Schickedanz (Germany) for $123 million[15] and a 90% stake in Handan Comfort and Beauty Group (China).

[20] Augmenting its presence in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, in 1999 the company paid $365 million for the tissue business of Swiss-based Attisholz Holding.

[25] In 2001, Kimberly-Clark bought Italian diaper maker Linostar and announced it was closing four Latin American manufacturing plants.

[28] In early 2004, chairman and chief executive officer Thomas Falk began implementation of a global business plan that the company has detailed in July 2003.

[4] In April 2020, the Financial Times reported that panic-buying during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a 13 percent increase in sales of Kimberley-Clark's consumer tissues in the first quarter of 2020 compared with the previous year.

In March 2022, the company announced the suspension of capital investments and advertising in Russia but continued to produce and sell health and hygiene products.

[33] Kimberly-Clark shares are mainly held by institutional investors (The Vanguard Group, BlackRock, State Street Corporation, and others).

Two years later, Gulfstream Aerospace purchased K-C Aviation from Kimberly-Clark for $250 million, which included its operations at airports in Dallas, Appleton, and Westfield, Massachusetts.

In June 2019, the Australian Federal Court found in favour of Kimberly-Clark Australia in Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC) case against them for the claim that Kleenex Cottonelle Flushable Cleansing Cloths were advertised as "flushable" in Australia's sewerage system, in contrast to other similar products which warned consumers against flushing them.

[38] On October 13, 2020, the Cottonelle brand flushable wipes issued a recall because the products manufactured between February through September may contain Pluralibacter gergovaie.

In the 1970s, color psychologist Dr. Cody Sweet represented newly styled Kleenex boxes as a national media spokesperson.