author
Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
1877–1934
A pioneering historian of the American South, he shaped early scholarship on slavery and plantation life—while also becoming a deeply debated figure for the racial assumptions and proslavery interpretations in his work.
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About the author
Born in LaGrange, Georgia, on November 4, 1877, Ulrich Bonnell Phillips became one of the earliest major historians of the antebellum South. He studied at the University of Georgia and went on to advanced historical work at Columbia, building a career that included teaching posts at Wisconsin, Tulane, Michigan, and Yale.
Phillips is best known for books such as American Negro Slavery and Life and Labor in the Old South. His research helped define the social and economic study of slavery and plantation records for a generation of scholars, and he was widely seen in his time as a leading authority on the Old South.
His reputation later became controversial. Modern readers often note that, although his archival work was influential, his interpretation of slavery minimized its brutality and reflected the racial biases of his era. He died on January 21, 1934, but his work still matters as both a landmark in southern historiography and an example of how historical scholarship can be shaped by the assumptions of its time.