Eli Lilly (July 8, 1838 – June 6, 1898) was an American Union Army officer, pharmacist, chemist, and businessman who founded Eli Lilly and Company.
Lilly enlisted in the Union Army during the American Civil War and recruited a company of men to serve with him in the 18th Independent Battery Indiana Light Artillery. He was later promoted to major and then colonel, and was given command of the 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment. Lilly was captured in September 1864 and held as a prisoner of war until January 1865. After the war, he attempted to run a plantation in Mississippi, but it failed and he returned to his pharmacy profession after the death of his first wife.
Lilly remarried and worked with business partners in several pharmacies in Indiana and Illinois before opening his own business in 1876 in Indianapolis. Lilly's company manufactured drugs and marketed them on a wholesale basis to pharmacies. Lilly's pharmaceutical firm proved to be successful and he soon became wealthy after making numerous advances in medicinal drug manufacturing. Two of the early advances he pioneered were creating gelatin capsules to contain medicines and developing fruit flavorings. Eli Lilly and Company became one of the first pharmaceutical firms of its kind to staff a dedicated research department and put into place numerous quality-assurance measures.
Using his wealth, Lilly engaged in numerous philanthropic pursuits. He turned over the management of the company to his son, Josiah K. Lilly Sr., around 1890 to allow himself more time to continue his involvement in charitable organizations and civic advancement. Lilly helped found the Commercial Club, the forerunner to the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, and became the primary patron of Indiana's branch of the Charity Organization Society. He personally funded a children's hospital in Indianapolis, known as Eleanor Hospital (closed in 1909). Lilly continued his active involvement with many other organizations until his death from cancer in 1898.
Lilly was an advocate of federal regulation of the pharmaceutical industry, and many of his suggested reforms were enacted into law in 1906, resulting in the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. He was also among the pioneers of the concept of prescriptions, and helped form what became the common practice of giving addictive or dangerous medicines only to people who had first seen a physician. The company he founded has since grown into one of the largest and most influential pharmaceutical corporations in the world, and the largest corporation in Indiana. Using the wealth generated by the company, his son, J. K., and grandsons, Eli Jr. and Josiah Jr. (Joe), established the Lilly Endowment in 1937. It remains as one of the largest charitable benefactors in the world and continues the Lilly legacy of philanthropy.
Early life and education
Lilly was born on July 8, 1838, in Baltimore, Maryland, the first of eleven children born to Gustavus and Esther (Kirby) Lilly. His family, who were partly of Swedish descent, moved to the low country of France before his great-grandparents immigrated to Maryland in 1789. As an infant, the family moved to Kentucky, where they eventually settled on a farm near Warsaw in Gallatin County.
In 1852, the family settled at Greencastle, Indiana, where Lilly's parents enrolled him at Indiana Asbury University, later renamed DePauw University, where he attended from 1852 to 1854. He also assisted at a local printing press as a printer's devil. Lilly grew up in a Methodist household, and his family was prohibitionist and anti-slavery; these beliefs partly motivated their move to Indiana. Lilly completed a four-year apprenticeship with Lawrence to become a chemist and pharmacist. Along with mixing chemicals, Lawrence taught Lilly how to manage funds and operate a business.
Career
In 1858, after earning a certificate of proficiency from his apprenticeship, Lilly left the Good Samaritan to work for Israel Spencer and Sons, a wholesale and retail druggist in Lafayette, before moving to Indianapolis to take a position at the Perkins and Coons Pharmacy.
In 1860, Lilly returned to Greencastle, Indiana, where he worked in Jerome Allen's drugstore. He opened his own drugstore in the city in January 1861, and married Emily Lemen, the daughter of a Greencastle merchant, on January 31, 1861.
American Civil War
thumb|Lilly's [[Union Army recruitment poster, published in 1862 during the American Civil War]]
In 1861, a few months after the start of the American Civil War, Lilly enlisted in the Union Army and joined the 21st Indiana Infantry Regiment on July 24. Lilly was commissioned as a second lieutenant on July 29, 1861. On August 3, the 21st Regiment reached Lilly's birthplace of Baltimore, where it remained for several months. Lilly resigned his commission in December 1861, and returned to Indiana to form an artillery unit.
In early 1862, Lilly actively recruited volunteers for his unit among his classmates, friends, local merchants, and farmers. He had recruitment posters created and posted them around Indianapolis, promising to form the "crack battery of Indiana".
In 1864, when Lilly's term of enlistment ended, he resigned his commission and left the 18th Indiana. Lilly joined the 9th Indiana Cavalry (121st Regiment Indiana Volunteers) and was promoted to major.
In September 1864, at the Battle of Sulphur Creek Trestle in Alabama, he was captured by Confederate troops under the command of Major General Nathan B. Forrest and held in a prisoner-of-war camp at Enterprise, Mississippi until his release in a prisoner exchange in January 1865. Lilly was promoted to colonel on June 4, 1865, and was stationed at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the spring of 1865 when the Civil War ended. In recognition of his service, he was brevetted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and mustered out of service with the 9th Indiana Cavalry on August 25, 1865.
Lilly later obtained a large atlas, and marked the path of his movements during the Civil War and the location of battles and skirmishes in which he participated. He often used the atlas when telling war stories. His colonel's title stayed with him for the rest of his life, and his friends and family used it as a nickname for him. In 1893, Lilly served as chairman of the Grand Army of the Republic, a brotherhood of Union Civil War veterans. During his term, he helped organize a reunion and large parade in Indianapolis that brought together tens of thousands of Union Army veterans, including from the Lilly Battery. Shortly after the move the entire family was stricken with a mosquito-borne disease, probably malaria, that was common in the region at that time. Although the others recovered, Emily died on August 20, 1866, eight months pregnant with a second son, who was stillborn. The death devastated Lilly, who wrote to his family, “I can hardly tell you how it glares at me ...it's a bitter, bitter truth ... Emily is indeed dead.” Lilly abandoned the cotton plantation and returned to Indiana; it fell into disrepair and a drought caused its cotton crop to fail. Lilly's business partner, unable to maintain the plantation because of the drought, disappeared with the venture's remaining cash. Lilly was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1868. In 1867, Lilly found work at the Harrison Daily and Company, a wholesale drug firm. In 1869, he began working for Patterson, Moore and Talbott, another medicinal wholesale company, before he moved to Illinois to establish a new business. Maria herself died in 1932.
Although the business in Illinois was profitable and allowed Lilly to save money, he was more interested in medicinal manufacturing than running a pharmacy. Lilly began formulating a plan to create a medicinal wholesale company of his own. He left the partnership with Binford in 1873 to return to Indianapolis, where, on January 1, 1874, he and John F. Johnston opened a drug manufacturing operation called Johnston and Lilly. Three years later, on March 27, 1876, Lilly dissolved the partnership. His share of the assets amounted to an estimated $400 in merchandise (several pieces of equipment and a few gallons of unmixed chemicals) and about $1,000 in cash. Lilly's manufacturing venture began with $1,400 ($ in 2020 chained dollars) in working capital and three employees: Albert Hall (chief compounder), Caroline Kruger (bottler and product finisher), and Lilly's fourteen-year-old son, Josiah, who had quit school to work as his father's apprentice. Lilly products gained a reputation for quality and became popular in the city. At the end of 1876, his first year of business, sales reached $4,470 ($ in 2020 chained dollars), and by 1879 they had grown to $48,000 ($ in 2020 chained dollars). By the late 1880s, Lilly had become one of the Indianapolis area's leading businessmen, with a company of more than one hundred employees and $200,000 ($ in 2020 chained dollars) in annual sales.
Believing that it would be an advantage for his son to gain a greater technical knowledge, Lilly sent Josiah to the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in 1880. Upon returning to the family business in 1882, Josiah was named superintendent of the laboratory.
Although there were many other small pharmaceutical companies in the United States, Eli Lilly and Company distinguished itself from the others by having a permanent research staff, inventing superior techniques for the mass production of medicinal drugs, and focusing on quality. At first, Lilly was the company's only researcher, but as the business grew, he established a research laboratory and employed others who were dedicated to creating new drugs.
In 1886, Lilly hired his first full-time research chemist, Ernest G. Eberhards, and botanist, Walter H. Evans.
Philanthropy
thumb|The [[Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (Indianapolis)|Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Indianapolis, the largest outdoor memorial in Indiana]]
By the time of his retirement from his business in around 1890, Lilly was a millionaire who had been involved in civic affairs for several years. Later in life, he had become increasingly more philanthropic, granting funds to charitable groups in the city.
In 1879, with a group of 25 other businessmen, Lilly had begun sponsoring the Charity Organization Society, and soon became the primary patron of its Indiana chapter. The society merged with other charitable organizations to form the Family Welfare Society of Indianapolis, a forerunner to the Family Service Association of Central Indiana and the United Way. The associated group organized charitable groups under a central leadership structure that allowed them to easily interact and better assist people by coordinating their efforts and identifying areas with the greatest need.
Lilly was interested in encouraging economic growth and general development in Indianapolis. He attempted to achieve those goals by supporting local commercial organizations financially and through his personal advocacy and promotion. In 1879, he made a proposal for a public water company to meet the needs of the city, which lead to the formation of the Indianapolis Water Company.
After the Gas Boom began to sweep the state in the 1880s, Lilly and other Commercial Club members advocated the creation of a public corporation to pump natural gas from the ground at the Trenton Gas Field, and provide it at low cost to Indianapolis businesses and homes. The project led to the creation of the Consumer Gas Trust Company, which Lilly named.
During the Panic of 1893, Lilly created a commission to help provide food and shelter to the poor people who were adversely affected.
Lilly's friends often urged him to seek public office, and they attempted to nominate him to run for Governor of Indiana as a Republican in 1896, but he refused. Lilly shunned public office, preferring to focus his attention on his philanthropic organizations. He did regularly endorse candidates, and made substantial donations to politicians who advanced his causes.
Lilly's main residence was a large home in Indianapolis on Tennessee Street, renamed Capitol Street in 1895, where he spent most of his time. Lilly, an avid fisherman, built a family vacation cottage on Lake Wawasee near Syracuse, Indiana, in 1886 and 1867. He had enjoyed regular vacations and recreation at the lake since the early 1880s. Lilly also founded the Wawasee Golf Club in 1891. Lilly's lakeside property became a haven for the family. His son, Josiah, built his own cottage on the estate in the mid-1930s.
Death
Lilly developed cancer in 1897 and died in his Indianapolis home on June 6, 1898, at 59 years of age. His funeral, held on June 9, was attended by thousands. His remains are interred in a large mausoleum at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis.
Legacy
thumb|Lilly (right) with son [[Josiah K. Lilly Sr. (left) and grandson Eli Lilly (center)]]
At the time of Lilly's death in 1898, Eli Lilly and Company had a product line of 2,005 items and annual sales of more than $300,000 ($ in 2020 chained dollars).
Lilly's son and two grandsons, as well as the Lilly company, continued the philanthropic efforts that Lilly practiced. Eli Lilly and Company played an important role in delivering medicine to the victims of the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Lilly's firm grew into one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Under the leadership of Lilly's son, Josiah (J. K.) and two grandsons, Eli and Joe, it developed many new innovations, including the pioneering and development of insulin during the 1920s, the mass production of penicillin during the 1940s, and the promotion of advancements in mass-produced medicines. Innovation continued at the company after it was made a publicly traded corporation in 1952; it developed Humulin, Merthiolate, Prozac, and many other medicines. It is the largest corporation and the largest charitable benefactor in Indiana. During his lifetime, Lilly had advocated for federal regulation on medicines; his son, Josiah, continued that advocacy following his father's death.
Honors and tributes
The Colonel Eli Lilly Civil War Museum, located beneath the Sailors' and Soldiers' Monument in Indianapolis, is named in Lilly's honor. It features exhibits about Indiana during the war period and the war in general.
Lilly was featured in the Indiana Historical Society exhibition, "You Are There: Eli Lilly at the Beginning," at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center in Indianapolis. The temporary exhibition, which ran from October 1, 2016, to January 20, 2018, included a recreation of the first Lilly laboratory on Pearl Street in Indianapolis and a costumed interpreter portraying Lilly.
See also
- History of Indiana