Eli Lilly: A Life, 1885-1977

Eli Lilly's long life extended over a wide range of endeavors in which he made major contributions. Under his active leadership, the pharmaceutical company he joined in 1907 evolved into one of America's most successful big businesses. Although a hard-working businessman, Lilly eventually acquired diverse interests outside the pharmaceutical industry. During the last three decades of his life Lilly gave away millions of dollars personally and through the Lilly Endowment. Now available in paperback, this first, full-scale biography of Eli Lilly considers his private life, his modest but strong-willed character, his family and friends, his personal disappointments and satisfactions and his deliberate effort, beginning in his forties, to develop what he called “a proper outlook on life.” Based on extensive research in Lilly's personal and business papers and on interviews with dozens of people who knew him, this is a revealing look at the life of an unusual man.

Paperback. 342 pages. 2006, Indiana Historical Society Press. By James H. Madison.