page_title: Eli Lilly
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Eli Lilly / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: A photo of Colonel Eli Lilly, his son Josiah Kirby Lilly Sr., and grandson Eli Lilly Jr.
context_page_description: Eli Lilly was an American soldier, pharmacist, chemist, and businessman who founded the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical corporation. 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 Regiment Indiana Cavalry. 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.
context_section_description: At the time of Lilly's death in 1898, his company had a product line of 2,005 items and annual sales of more than $300,000 ($8,547,600 in 2015 chained dollars). His son, Josiah, inherited the company following his father's death, and became its president in 1898. Josiah continued to expand its operations before passing it on to his own sons, Eli Jr. and Josiah Jr. (Joe).
  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. In 1937 Lilly's son and grandsons established the Lilly Endowment, which became the largest philanthropic endowment in the world in terms of assets and charitable giving in 1998. (Other endowments have since surpassed it, but it still remains among the top ten.)
  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. According to Forbes, Eli Lilly and Company ranked as the 243rd largest company in the world in 2016, with sales of $20 billion and a market value of $86 billion (USD). It is the largest corporation and the largest charitable benefactor in Indiana.
  Lilly's greatest contributions to the industry were his standardized and methodical production of drugs, his dedication to research and development, and the therapeutic value of the drugs he created. As a pioneer in the modern pharmaceutical industry, many of his innovations later became standard practice. Lilly's ethical reforms, in a trade that was marked by outlandish claims of miracle medicines, began a period of rapid advancement in the development of medicinal drugs. During his lifetime, Lilly had advocated for federal regulation on medicines; his son, Josiah, continued that advocacy following his father's death.
caption: Colonel Eli Lilly (right) with son Josiah K. Lilly Sr. (left) and grandson Eli Lilly (center)
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