Percy Lavon Julian, born April 11, 1899 in Montgomery, Alabama, was a research chemist and a pioneer in synthesizing medicinal drugs from plants. His work paved the way for the steroid drug industry's production of cortisone, and artificial hormones that led to birth controls.
He attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, which only accepted a few African-Americans. He was not allowed to live in the dormitory, and at first, stayed in a boarding home, which refused to serve him meals. He was allowed to live in a fraternity house, in their attic (or basement, according to which source), and do servant work. He graduated from DePauw in 1920 as valedictorian.
In 1929, he received a Rockefeller Foundation to continue his education at the University of Vienna, where he earned his PhD. In Europe, he didn't have the racial prejudices that had stifled his opportunities in the states. However, his freedoms and liberties in Europe would cause trouble in the future back in the US. He admitted in letters about his dalliances with Viennese women, wine, dances, and also made some derisive remarks about members of Howard University's faculty, where he had been an instructor before he left for Vienna. The scandals led to his dismissal.
A former mentor offered him an organic chemistry teaching position at DePauw University in 1932, but he was denied a professorship in 1936 because of racism.
W. J. O'Brien, a vice-president at Glidden Company, supplier of soybean oil products, offered him a position of director of research at Glidden's Soya Products Division in Chicago. He discovered a way of producing large quantities of soy sterols on a daily basis. The soy stigmasterol could be converted into commercial quantities of progesterone, the female hormone. The large production of these hormones, reduced the cost of treating hormonal deficiencies.
Julian left Glidden in December 1953 after Glidden decided to leave the steroid business. He founded his own research firm, Julian Laboratories, Inc. in Chicago, and hired his best chemists including African Americans and women from Glidden. He continued his research and synthesis of hormones throughout his life He sold his company in 1961 for $2.3M, making him one of the first black millionaires.
He passed away of liver cancer in April 1975 in Waukegan, Illinois.
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