Pioneer 5 of 21 · 1899-1975

Percy Julian

Contribution. First to synthesize physostigmine, a glaucoma drug, in 1935. He then pioneered large-scale production of steroid hormones, including progesterone and testosterone, from soybean sterols. He received more than 130 patents.

Factor coverage

Favorable entries (helped or barrier absent) and adverse entries (barrier or not overcome) by factor. Factor tags are this site's classification.

Biological00 Psychological00 Economic21 Societal15 Cultural04 Social21 Environmental00 Educational11 Technological00

Barriers faced

Factors	Statement
Educational Societal Economic	Born in Montgomery, Alabama, the grandson of enslaved people. Montgomery had no public high school for Black students, so he entered DePauw University inadequately prepared and started as a probationary student.
Societal Cultural	After he earned a master's degree from Harvard in 1923, Harvard denied him the teaching assistantship needed to continue to a doctorate, reportedly out of concern that white students would resent a Black instructor.
Societal Cultural	After his physostigmine breakthrough, DePauw refused him a permanent faculty position. At the time, American colleges were not prepared to have a Black person teach white students.
Societal Social Cultural	When his family moved to the white suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, around 1950, their home was attacked, including a firebombing. The family stayed.

What helped

Factors	Statement
Social	A mentor. DePauw chemistry professor William Blanchard encouraged him toward research and later brought him back to DePauw as a research fellow.
Educational Economic	Fellowships and study abroad. A fellowship took him to Harvard, and he earned his doctorate at the University of Vienna in 1931, where he began working with plant compounds.
Social	A collaborator. Josef Pikl, a fellow student from Vienna, joined him at DePauw. Together they completed the physostigmine synthesis.
Economic Societal	A private-sector path. When universities closed their doors, the Glidden Company hired him in 1936 to direct research in its soybean division. In 1953 he founded Julian Laboratories, which he sold in 1961 for more than $2 million.

Not overcome

Factors	Statement
Societal Cultural	He was denied the academic career his research merited, and his family faced racist violence. When Glidden declined to pursue further biomedical work, he left to start his own company.

Pattern summary

Element	In this case
Door-opener	Blanchard
Knowledge source	DePauw, Harvard, Vienna
Institutional support	DePauw fellowship, Glidden
Built on recent work	Plant chemistry learned in Vienna
Setback overcome	Segregated schooling, Harvard's refusal
Barrier not overcome	Denied a professorship

Sources

Also relevant: Bell, A., Chetty, R., Jaravel, X., Petkova, N., & Van Reenen, J. (2019). Who becomes an inventor in America? Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(2), 647-713. All references