Young Percy Julian.
Young Percy Julian.
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Young Percy Julian.
Young Percy Julian.
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy Lavon Julian
Percy was born on April 11, 1899, in Montgomery, Alabama, United States. He was the son of James Sumner Julian, a railroad mail clerk, and Elizabeth Adams.
Even at an early age, Percy wanted to be a chemist, but his father implored him to be a doctor.
In the Julian household, great emphasis was placed on the value of education. "Make it 100" was the expected goal of the Julian children in school.
Julian attended elementary school in Montgomery, and because there was no public high school for blacks in the city, he went to a private school for his secondary education. Percy graduated in 1916, head of his class. After graduation, he enrolled in DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. The college officials judged his academic background to be so impoverished that for two years Percy was required to attend the local academy even while carrying a full college load and working to support himself. Graduating from DePauw in 1920 with a major in chemistry, Julian was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and was class valedictorian. He wanted to continue his education in graduate school. But several universities wrote DePauw that they rejected Julian because no industry or white university would hire a black Ph. D.
In 1922, with the help of an Austin Fellowship, Julian enrolled at Harvard University, where he studied under the great chemist, E. P. Kohler. He earned straight A's and in 1923, was awarded a master's degree in organic chemistry.
In 1929 Julian was awarded a General Education Fellowship sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. He applied for admission to the University of Vienna in Austria. Against stiff international competition for one of the few openings available, he was accepted into the doctoral program. Julian mastered German and spent the next two years with the noted authority on the chemistry of natural products, Ernst Späth. In 1931 he was awarded a Ph. D. in organic chemistry.
With no other choice available, Julian accepted a position to teach chemistry at Fisk University in Nashville. Though he worked hard at teaching, the burning desire to continue his education remained entrenched. Julian returned to teaching after Harvard University. He first taught at West Virginia State College, then was appointed head of the chemistry department at Howard University.
Julian returned to DePauw in 1932. In 1935 he and his assistant Josef Pikl synthesized the drug physostigmine. An alkaloid of the Calabar bean (Physostigma venenosum), physostigmine is used to treat glaucoma. Julian succeeded where other reputable chemists had failed at a task some had pronounced impossible. Interestingly, Julian made this discovery at DePauw, where he had his first real course in chemistry. He had returned to DePauw through the intercession of his old teacher and friend, Dean William Blanchard, who provided support and facilities for Julian. When Blanchard nominated Julian for an appointment with the faculty at DePauw, however, the board of trustees turned him down. Despite this setback, Julian's work at DePauw had not gone unnoticed.
Indeed, his reputation as a chemist made itself felt against the wall of resolve erected by American universities and firms not to employ blacks in research facilities. In 1936, Julian was hired by Glidden Paint Company in Chicago and made Director of Research of its Soya Products Division. This appointment came immediately after a firm in Wisconsin rescinded an offer to hire him when officials discovered that a local ordinance barred blacks from overnight stays within city limits. In appointing a black to a position of such major responsibility, Glidden acted with pioneering courage and, as it developed, good judgment. Under Julian, the previously failing soybean component of the company prospered. Julian used the soybean to yield previously unimagined products.
He did not confine himself to applied chemistry. His publications clearly demonstrated his active interest in basic research. Among some 185 papers, his studies on indoles, sterols, steroids, and conjugated systems provided enlightening reading for students of organic chemistry and biochemistry.
Julian left Glidden in 1953 to form his own company. He founded the Julian Laboratories in Chicago, with subsidiaries in Mexico and Guatemala. Later he founded Julian Associates and the Julian Research Institute.
Percy Lavon Julian died in Chicago on April 11, 1975, after a courageous fight against cancer.
Percy Lavon Julian was a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs from plants. His syntheses of Reichstein's Substance S made possible the mass production of cortisone. Cortisone hailed as a wonder drug in treating arthritis became available in large quantities and at a cost that placed it within the reach of the general public. Julian and his team also synthesized the female sex hormone progesterone, the male hormone testosterone, and other hormones. They produced a fire-resistant foam credited with saving thousands of lives at sea. A variety of other products, including the food supplement "lecithin granules," paper-sizing materials, and scores of ingredients used in poultry and other animal feed, were among a few of the realizations of Julian's fertile imagination. Julian was among the most versatile of scientists.
He was the first African-American chemist inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, and the second African-American scientist inducted (behind David Blackwell) from any field.
In 1950, the Chicago Chamber of Commerce named him "Chicagoan of the Year."
The legacy of Percy Lavon Julian is alive even to this day. Every year since 1975, the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers presents the Percy L. Julian Award for Pure and Applied Research in Science and Engineering.
In 1990, Julian was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
In 1999, the American Chemical Society recognized Julian's synthesis of physostigmine as a National Historic Chemical Landmark.
In 2011, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine named their qualifying exam preparation committee after Percy Julian.
Percy Lavon Julian was raised in a Christian family.
Percy Lavon Julian was active as a fund-raiser for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for their project to sue to enforce civil rights legislation.
Julian's life cannot be recounted without wonderment that he ever became a scientist. Even after brilliant scientific contributions, he experienced social humiliations, rejections, and acts of violence because of his race.
In his researches Julian isolated simple compounds in natural products, then investigated how those compounds were naturally altered into chemicals essential to life, including vitamins and hormones; he then attempted to create the compounds artificially. Early in his career, Julian attracted attention for synthesizing the drug physostigmine, used to treat glaucoma. He refined a soy protein that became the basis of Aero-Foam, a foam fire extinguisher used by the United States Navy in World War II. He led research that resulted in the quantity production of the hormones progesterone (female) and testosterone (male) and cortisone drugs.
Those who knew Julian, spoke of him as being urbane, a person of wit, charm, and good humor. He was as much at home in the humanities as in the sciences, and he had a passionate love for the opera.
Yet he was not deterred. Family and friends detected no hate in him and found an almost complete absence of bitterness. It seems appropriate to attribute his tenacity to a strong family with lofty values, an uncommon intellect, a scholarship grounded in sciences and humanities, and an indomitable spirit.
By 1950 his work was so influential and helpful that he was named Chicagoan of the Year by the city of Chicago, an honor that enraged racists across the city. That year his house was set on fire on Thanksgiving day, and the next year dynamite was thrown at his house.
His adult life was not the first time he encountered the violence inherent in racism.
Percy Julian, a devoted family man, married Anna Johnson in 1935. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the first black person to earn a Ph. D. in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. The couple had two children.
