Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
| Ulrich Bonnell Phillips | |
|---|---|
| Born |
November 4, 1877 La Grange, Georgia |
| Died | January 21, 1934 (aged 56) |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Slavery; Old South |
| Institutions |
University of Wisconsin–Madison Tulane University University of Michigan Yale University |
| Alma mater |
University of Georgia Columbia University |
| Academic advisors | Frederick Jackson Turner |
Ulrich Bonnell Phillips (November 4, 1877 – January 21, 1934) was an American historian who largely defined the field of the social and economic history of the antebellum American South and slavery. Phillips concentrated on the large plantations that dominated the Southern economy, and he did not investigate the numerous small farmers who held few slaves. He concluded that plantation slavery produced great wealth, but was a dead end, economically, that left the South bypassed by the industrial revolution underway in the North.
He concluded that plantation slavery was not very profitable, had about reached its geographical limits in 1860, and would probably have faded away without the American Civil War, which he considered needless conflict. He praised the entrepreneurship of plantation owners and denied they were brutal. Phillips argued that they provided adequate food, clothing, housing, medical care and training in modern technology—that they formed a "school" which helped "civilize" the slaves. He admitted the failure was that no one graduated from this school.
Phillips systematically hunted down and revealed plantation records and unused manuscript sources. An example of pioneering comparative work was "A Jamaica Slave Plantation" (1914). His methods and use of sources shaped the research agenda of most succeeding scholars, even those who disagreed with his favorable treatment of the masters. After the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s historians turned their focus away from his emphasis on the material well-being of the slaves to the slaves' own cultural constructs and efforts to achieve freedom.
By turning away from the political debates about slavery that divided North and South, Phillips made the economics and social structure of slavery the main theme in 20th century scholarship. Together with his highly eloquent writing style, his new approach made him the most influential historian of the antebellum south. His interpretation of white supremacy as the "central theme of southern history" remains one of the main interpretations of Southern history.
Born Ulysses Bonnell Phillips, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Georgia in 1897. He obtained his Master of Arts degree from UGA as well in 1899 and his Ph.D. in 1902 from Columbia University where he studied under William Dunning. His dissertation, Georgia and State Rights won the Justin Winsor Prize and was published by the American Historical Association.
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