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PERCY JULIAN 
Percy Julian was born one of six children in Montgomery in 1899. He was the son of a railroad clerk and a school teacher, and the grandson of a former slave. He had limited public education, because around the turn of the century, public schooling for blacks in Montgomery was only provided as far as eighth grade. He entered Depauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, as a sub-freshman and had to undertake considerable studying to catch up with the other students. However, this did not stop him from graduating first in his class with honors at the age of 21.
Upon graduation, he took a position as a chemistry teacher at Fisk University in Nashville where he worked for two years, before being awarded the Austin Fellowship, and moving to Harvard as a graduate student. Once again, he finished top of his class, and received his master's degree in 1923 with straight A's. Even though he had admirable qualifications, he was unable to obtain a teaching position at a major university, so he took a job at West Virginia Sate College and then at Howard University in Washington D.C. In 1929, he left teaching and traveled to Austria to study for his PhD in organic chemistry at the University of Vienna, which he completed in 1931. He returned to Depauw University, and in 1935, he created a drug treatment for glaucoma, when he synthesized physostigmine from the calabar bean. Despite the international acclaim that he received, he was denied a professorship by the school because of his race. He left Depauw to join the Glidden Company as director of research. He remained there for 17 years. During his time, he developed many different processes, including the synthesis of male and female hormones. His most notable achievement, however, was the synthesis of cortisone, which is used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other similar conditions. Percy Julian died on April 19, 1975, from liver cancer. During his lifetime, he held more than 100 chemical patents, wrote scores of papers and received dozens of awards and honorary degrees. Sources And Links To Other Percy Julian Internet Resources: Invent Now Hall of Fame - Percy Lavon Julian. PBS.org People and Discoveries - Percy Julian. The Black Inventor Online Museum - Percy Julian. About.com - History of Cortisone. SIGN UP TO OUR EMAIL NEWSLETTER If you would like us to keep you updated with changes and improvements to thatsalabama.com, please enter your email address here: If you would like to support thatsalabama.com with a donation via paypal, please click on this button: |
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