The Historian as Archival Advocate: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips and the Records of Georgia and the South

Abstract

Historian Ulrich Bonnell Phillips (1877-1934) is best known as the author of two of the most influential works in the field of Southern history, American Negro Slavery (1918) and Life and Labor in the Old South (1929). This article underscores Phillips's efforts to promote the location, appraisal, arrangement, description, and conservation of the historical documents, especially plantation manuscripts and local records, of the Old South. In 1903 Phillips prepared an important report for the American Historical Association surveying Georgia's archives. Two years later he summarized the state of archival affairs for the entire South. Phillips's advocacy of systematic archival practice in the South furthered his career, enhanced his private collection of manuscripts and documents, and encouraged the establishment of state and university archival programs in his native region.