Percy Julian, Sr., and New Foam for Fire Extinguishers

Stuart K. Hayashi



The following is a section of the longer essay, “How Billionaires and Capitalism Save Billions of Lives — Including Yours.” That essay includes an index listing various case studies of a for-profit initiative saving lives. The blog post below is of at least one such case study. You can return to that index here.



Some innovators invent both pharmaceuticals and safety devices. One of them was Percy Julian, Sr., born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1899, the grandson of slaves. In spite of the heavy discrimination, Julian put himself through school and became a prominent chemical engineer. He became director of research at the Glidden Company where he extracted chemicals from soy and synthesized them into new compounds. First at Glidden and then at his own firm Julian Laboratories, which he started in 1953, he produced steroids to treat the sufferers of rheumatoid arthritis.

Julian and his chemists were able to make gains in efficiency to the point where on some products they quadrupled production. On account of these gains, between 1950 and 1956, Julian was able to lower the per-kilogram price of progesterone, an ingredient in arthritis medication, from $4,000 to $400.

But Julian’s work did not merely relieve pain; it also cut down the number of fatalities. In the early 1940s, he made improvements on the substances contained in fire extinguishers. As recounted on the website of the PBS series Nova, at Glidden he “extracted a soy protein used in fire-fighting foam, which saved thousands of lives during World War II.”

In 1961 he sold Julian Laboratories for $2.3 million — $20 million in 2022 U.S. dollars. Much of the proceeds he would donate to the civil rights movement.



Return to index of case studies of lifesaving for-profit ventures.