320 American Archivist / Vol. 52 / Summer 1989

Research Article Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/52/3/320/2747824/aarc_52_3_375110x333r21123.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021

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

BY JOHN DAVID SMITH

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 (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underscores Phillips's efforts to promote the location, appraisal, arrangement, description, and conservation of the historical documents, especially plantation manuscripts and local records, of the Old South.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 Asso- ciation 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.

About the author: John David Smith is associate professor of history and director of the M.A. in Archival Management Program at North Carolina State University. Professor Smith earned his Ph.D. in Southern history from the University of Kentucky in 1977. He has written, edited, or co- edited five books, including Window on the War: Frances Dallam Peter's Lexington Civil War Diary (1976), Black Slavery in the Americas (2 vols., 1982), An Old Creed for the New South (1985), The Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery (1988), and Ulrich Bonnell Phillips: A Southern Historian and His Critics (1990). He delivered an earlier version of this paper at the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists, Atlanta, Georgia, in October 1988. Historian as Archival Advocate 321

STUDENTS OF AMERICAN ARCHIVAL his- can, Lynn R. Meekins, urged historian tory recognize that in the early twentieth Herbert Baxter Adams of The Johns Hop- century the South led the way in the estab- kins University to begin a study of South- lishment of state-sponsored archival insti- ern blacks. "I earnestly hope that you will," tutions.1 Writing in 1905, Mississippi Meekins explained, because "this is an im- archivist Dunbar Rowland remarked that portant dividing line between generations Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/52/3/320/2747824/aarc_52_3_375110x333r21123.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 "the work of the archivist, in preserving and valuable material will soon be slipping the sources of truth, is fast becoming one away."5 Too often manuscripts pertaining of the most important activities in which to the South were either lost, hoarded in historical agencies can engage." "Progres- attics, or rotted away in corncribs or other sive States," Rowland explained, espe- outbuildings. And many valuable historical cially in the South, had already established manuscripts disappeared because few per- "special departments for the care, classi- sons in the region recognized their value as fication, and publication of official ar- historical evidence. Writing in 1903, John chives" to provide historians with primary Franklin Jameson, editor of the American source materials.2 Led by Thomas M. Owen, Historical Review, cautioned scholars to in 1901 Alabama founded its Department identify and preserve primary materials on of Archives and History. Following Owen's Afro-American slavery. Jameson predicted lead, Rowland campaigned for the estab- that "a hundred years from now inquiring lishment of the Mississippi Department of minds will be eagerly seeking knowledge Archives and History, which was estab- of American slavery . . . [and] now is the lished in 1902. A year later North Carolina golden time to collect the data, before it is chartered its Historical Commission di- too late."6 In the same year an expert in rected by Robert D. W. Connor. Despite the field remarked that only three reposi- the South's national leadership in docu- tories in the entire country—the Library of mentary preservation, pioneer Southern Congress, the Wisconsin State Historical historians nevertheless labored under seri- Society, and the Alabama Department of ous problems as they sought evidence to Archives and History—held sufficient pri- document the history of their region.3 mary materials for the writing of Southern history.7 Indeed, locating the South's his- As early as 1892 a writer in the Sewanee torical manuscripts posed serious problems Review implored historians to write "a true for the new generation of "scientific" his- history" of the South before the materials torians at work writing the institutional his- for that history had vanished.4 A year later tory of their section. the literary editor of the Baltimore Ameri- As a result of these archival deficiencies, and decades before the appearance of re- pository guides and union manuscript cat- 'Scc Robert Reynolds Simpson, "The Origin of State Departments of Archives and History in the South" (Ph.D. diss., University of Mississippi, 1971). 2Dunbar Rowland, "The Importance of Preserving Local Records, Illustrated by the Spanish Archives of 5Meckins to Adams, 10 April 1893, Herbert Baxter the Natchez District," Annual Report of the American Adams Papers, The Johns Hopkins University Li- Historical Association for the Year 1905 (2 vols., brary. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906), '"Charles H. Haskins, "Report of the Proceedings 1:205. of the Nineteenth Annual Meeting of the American 3Scc John David Smith, "The Formative Period of Historical Association," Annual Report of the Amer- American Slave Historiography, 1890-1920" (Ph.D. ican Historical Association for the Year 1903 (2 vols., diss., University of Kentucky, 1977), 5-11. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904), 1:29. "•Review of Thomas Nelson Page, The Old South: 7Ulrich B. Phillips to Yatcs Snowden, 13 January Essays Social and Political, in Sewanee Review 1 1903, Yatcs Snowden Papers, South Caroliniana Li- (November 1892): 90. brary, University of South Carolina. 322 American Archivist / Summer 1989 Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/52/3/320/2747824/aarc_52_3_375110x333r21123.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021

Ulrich B. Phillips (Courtesy of the Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum, Fort Wayne, Indiana)

alogs, historians were forced to scour the conservation. In 1905, for example, Jame- South in what amounted to self-archival son began a systematic search for historical work, including acquisition, appraisal, ar- manuscripts throughout the South. Profes- rangement, description, and, in some cases, sor Albert Bushnell Hart of Harvard Uni- Historian as Archival Advocate 323

versity advised him to seek the assistance interpretations lost favor with historians in of those with the necessary personal con- the 1950s, his contributions as a pioneer nections in the region—the descendants of historian and advocate of systematic archi- the South's plantation gentry.8 Mississippi val practice deserve careful analysis. planter and historian Alfred Holt Stone cast Significantly, Phillips uncovered vast his net widely in tracking down historical riches of Southern manuscripts—plantation Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/52/3/320/2747824/aarc_52_3_375110x333r21123.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 materials on the plantation system. In 1907 records as well as those pertaining to other Stone told historian William E. Dodd that aspects of Southern history. Well ahead of "I am in search of all forms of sugar, rice, his time, he underscored the precarious, tobacco, indigo and cotton plantation rec- neglected condition of the South's widely- ords,—such as journals, diaries, account dispersed private papers and official doc- books, account sales, cotton picking rec- uments. Phillips emphasized the impor- ords, instructions to overseers. ... I want tance of arranging and preserving these anything which will throw the least light records. In 1903, for instance, he com- upon the economic side of the institution plained that Northerners had dominated the of slavery."9 writing of American history. "It must be Among historians of these years, Geor- written anew before it reaches its final form gia native Ulrich Bonnell Phillips (1877- of truth, and for that work the South must 1934) proved most successful in locating, do its part in preparation." Regrettably, utilizing, and promoting the importance of Phillips added, Southern history lagged be- antebellum Southern historical records. hind other research topics principally be- Phillips identified—and urged the preser- cause "most of the [region's documentary] vation of—manuscripts, especially those material is inaccessible." Three years later pertaining to slavery and the plantation sys- Phillips admonished Yates Snowden of the tem. Phillips employed these sources in University of South Carolina to take pains writing or editing eight books, most nota- to conserve the plantation records in his bly American Negro Slavery (1918) and Life care. "For God's sake," commanded Phil- and Labor in the Old South (1929). These lips, "keep 'em in a fire-proof vault."11 works, though by today's standards meth- Indeed, Phillips took advantage of every odologically backward, racist, paternalis- opportunity to encourage the establishment tic, and proslavery, thrust Phillips into the of repositories of historical manuscripts in first rank of American historians of his gen- his native region. eration. He dominated the historiography Trained in the "scientific" historical of slavery in the first half of the twentieth methodology of his day at the University century. His use of plantation manuscripts, of Georgia and , Phil- then relatively obscure and arcane sources, lips was determined to attain "objectivity" enabled Phillips to delineate slavery's in- by allowing the primary sources to speak stitutional features, to analyze its profita- for themselves. Phillips believed strongly bility on a cost basis, and to probe the in plantation records because he looked upon dynamics of the master-slave relation- them as unconscious sources for the eco- ship.10 Though Phillips's Jim Crow-era

8Jameson to Thomas M. Owen, 14 January 1905, South: Proslavery Ideology and Historiography, 1865- Jameson to Hart, 12 January 1905, Hart to Jameson, 1918 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985), 239-284. 23 January 1905, J. Franklin Jameson Papers, Man- "Phillips to George J. Baldwin, 2 May 1903, Ul- uscript Division, Library of Congress. rich B. Phillips Papers, Southern Historical Collec- 9Stone to Dodd, 10 July 1907, William E. Dodd tion, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Phillips to Snowden, 31 March 1906, Snowden Pa- 10John David Smith, An Old Creed for the New pers. 324 American Archivist / Summer 1989

nomic and social history of the South. He in the extensive use of Southern newspa- regretted that because "original material" pers and of correspondence between mas- on the history of the South had been so ters and overseers. He gleaned much scarce, previous writers substituted guess statistical information for charts and graphs work "for understanding in many cases from city directories, bills of sale, slave when attempting to interpret Southern de- price quotations, slave ship manifests, and Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/52/3/320/2747824/aarc_52_3_375110x333r21123.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 velopments." "The most reliable source of cotton factors' account statements. Phillips knowledge" for the , not only utilized numerous plantation man- Phillips explained, "and the source least uscripts in his writings, but published as used thus far," were plantation records— edited documents some of the more valu- "documents written with no thought of able papers that he unearthed, including reaching the public eye, writings whose Plantation and Frontier Documents: 1649- purpose is to give the plain facts and noth- 1863 (2 vols., 1909) and "The Correspon- ing else." He predicted that once planta- dence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. tion records were made available to Stephens, and Howell Cobb" (1913). He researchers, "travelers' accounts, falla- also innovatively mined such hitherto un- cious as they usually are, will be duly rel- known sources as 1,300 vouchers of slaves egated to a place of very minor 12 convicted of capital crimes. Phillips uncov- importance." ered these records at the Virginia State Li- Phillips was the only Southern historian brary. early in the twentieth century systemati- As much as any archivist, Phillips under- cally to exploit planters' letters, diaries, and stood the value to the historian of rare books ledgers on a large scale. In 1903, in one of and documents. While in graduate school his first publications, he implored research- at Georgia he served as assistant university ers to integrate a broad range of primary librarian. In 1901, the university's chan- sources into their writings on the South. cellor, citing Phillips's willingness to un- "For a complete view of the life of the dertake "special training" in library science, community," Phillips explained, "the town heartily recommended his appointment as records must be supplemented with the Librarian, a proposal that never came to county archives, the state documents, the pass. After joining the history faculty at the newspaper files, travelers' accounts, and University of Wisconsin in 1902, Phillips 13 private correspondence." He also em- proposed an arrangement whereby he would ployed census data in conjunction with these devote one-third of each year teaching at records. Phillips similarly paved the way Madison, and the remainder as librarian at the Georgia Historical Society in Savan- nah.14 With much the same commitment to the preservation of manuscripts as archi- 12PhiIlips, unpublished and untitled manuscript be- ginning, "The field of Southern history is so rich" vists Owen, Rowland, and Connor, Phil- [1904?], Ulrich B. Phillips Collection, Yale Univer- lips linked the future of Southern history sity Library; Phillips, "Documentary Collections and Publication in the Older States of the South," Annual as a research field to the availability of the Report of the American Historical Association for the region's primary sources. Accordingly, in Year 1905 (2 vols., Washington: Government Print- 1903 Phillips accepted a proposal from ing Office, 1906), 1:203-204. For a critique of Phil- lips as "scientific" historian, see W. K. Wood, "U. B. Phillips, Unscientific Historian: A Further Note on His Methodology and Use of Sources," Southern "Report of the Chancellor of the University of Studies 21 (Summer 1982): 146-162. Georgia (1901), 11-12, Phillips Collection; Wendell "Phillips, "Historical Notes of Milledgeville, Ga.," H. Stephenson, "Ulrich B. Phillips, the University of The Gulf States Historical Magazine 2 (November Georgia, and the Georgia Historical Society," Geor- 1903): 170. gia Historical Quarterly 41 (June 1957): 118-125. Historian as Archival Advocate 325

Herman V. Ames, chair of the American historical documents, or who has not had Historical Association's (AHA) Public Ar- a technical training in historical work." chives Commission, to prepare an exten- Phillips proposed that the first step in the sive inventory of Georgia's official records. process would be the kind of preliminary Phillips was especially well-suited to the report of the state's records that he was task, having examined many of Georgia's preparing for the AHA.16 Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/52/3/320/2747824/aarc_52_3_375110x333r21123.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 records while researching his award-win- Phillips began his canvass of Georgia's ning doctoral dissertation, Georgia and State archives by conferring with Governor Jo- Rights (1902). Even before starting his seph M. Terrell and former Governor Allen project for the AHA, Phillips remarked that D. Candler, the latter serving as Georgia problems awaited anyone who sought to state historian and compiler of records. After identify and urge the preservation of Geor- his thorough examination of the docu- gia's archival records. "There are stacks ments, Phillips concluded that Georgia's of valuable documents now being eaten by state and local records constituted "one of rats in the state capitol," he complained, the most valuable collections of unex- "and lots of others in private hands in every ploited official documents now to be found part of the state."15 in America." But as elsewhere in the South, Phillips linked the deplorable condition Phillips lamented, Georgia's state and local of Georgia's documents to what he consid- records suffered from problems of arrange- ered to be the overall backwardness of the ment, description, and conservation. These state's historical activities. Influenced problems were exacerbated, he said, by the strongly by the ethos of professionalism and fact that Candler, though well-intentioned, efficiency espoused by Progressives in was "sure to do no work of value in his Wisconsin and elsewhere, he advised present office." According to Phillips, Georgians to establish a modern historical Candler not only lacked historical training, society, one staffed by "scientific" histo- but spent most of his time merely "drawing rians. "In general," argued Phillips, "the his salary." In Phillips's judgment, Geor- most important policy is ... to keep the gia's archives would suffer as long as they old fossils out of office, and prevent the were entrusted to an untrained "political society from becoming antiquarian rather employee." The state drastically required than historical. ... Of course, the geneal- "expert and enthusiastic service" in its ar- ogists and the collectors of arrow-heads, chival and documentary publication pro- who think they are historical students must grams.17 be coddled sometimes." But, he insisted, Phillips deplored the fact that many of "for practical work men of true historical Georgia's early records had gone astray. interest and training must be had." Phillips He judged possibly "the most serious loss" argued that only a trained professional should tackle the overwhelming task of organizing the Georgia state papers in their confused 16Phillips to George J. Baldwin, 17 April 1903, condition. "Even a synopsis of them," he Phillips Papers. "Phillips, "The Public Archives of Georgia," An- wrote, "cannot be made without heavy nual Report of the American Historical Association work. It should not be attempted by anyone for the Year 1903 (2 vols., Washington: Government who does not know the relative value of Printing Office, 1904), 1:439; Phillips to George J. Baldwin, 17 April, 26 September, 1903, Phillips Pa- pers. In spite of Phillips's negative assessment, be- tween 1904-1916 Candler edited thirty-five volumes 15Phillips to , 12 July 1903, of Georgia Colonial, Revolutionary, and Confederate Frederick Jackson Turner Correspondence, University Records. See Theodore H. Jack, "The Preservation of Wisconsin Archives; Phillips to Lucien H. Boggs, of Georgia History," North Carolina Historical Re- 23 February 1903, Phillips Papers. view 4 (July 1927): 245-246. 326 American Archivist / Summer 1989

to have been the letters to the governors ords of the colonial period "numbered in prior to around 1840, which were never some obscure system with letters of the al- transcribed. Other records, that had no di- phabet." He described a collection of rect connection to Georgia history, had er- "miscellaneous original documents"—re- roneously been placed with the state's ports and letters—tied in packages with la- documents. Many early documents that be- bels and stacked upon four shelves in the Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/52/3/320/2747824/aarc_52_3_375110x333r21123.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 longed in county and municipal offices lay main archives room of the state depart- instead in the state archives in Atlanta. To ment. These documented Georgia's rela- illustrate another problem, Phillips de- tions with the French and Spanish at Natchez scribed a volume of bills of sale and deeds and St. Augustine "concerning despera- of gift, located among the executive de- does on the Florida boundary." Records partment's archives, that should logically pertaining to postbellum expenditures, ex- have been deposited in the state depart- plained Phillips, were located "around the ment. Other historical records had simply walls of the main document room of the vanished, grumbled Phillips. He was dis- executive department" in "tall cases of dust- appointed, for instance, to discover that proof pigeonholes."19 manuscript state census returns "for but few More troublesome, in Phillips's opinion, of the counties are to be found in any de- was the arrangement and description of gree of completeness," and those for 1824 Georgia's antebellum records and those for and 1831 were "fragmentary." Virtually the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. no records existed before 1858 for the city Phillips described these as "among the most of Athens. Though its modern records were important in the capital." Located in the well-housed in fireproof vaults, Phillips "overflow document room"—an obscure, surmised that the university town's early isolated room on the third floor of the cap- documents were destroyed by Union troops, ital—these documents were stored in pack- "or that the documents were hidden by the ages, some labeled, some not. "From townspeople during Sherman's invasion and careless handling many of the documents have never been restored to the archives have become displaced from the packages room." In any case, he regretted that the in which they belong," Phillips explained. surviving documents reflected "many signs He wrote with disgust that these packages of neglect" and supposed "that at some were stacked carelessly "along the walls in period the custodian destroyed part of the open shelves or bins, with just the faintest archives as rubbish."18 hint of classification. For practical re- Phillips criticized the arrangement of search, the documents might almost as well Georgia's records—even those in the cap- be in a promiscuous heap upon the floor. ital building—describing them as "to a large The room has no attendant, and apparently degree haphazard." Except for the land is not visited as often as once a year. There records in the department of state, Phillips are 160 of these bins full of papers, each discovered little systematic arrangement bin about 3 feet long and a foot high." anywhere. Even these important records These manuscripts included the "Rough were "preserved in a thousand or more pi- Minutes" of the Governor's Council for the geon-hole boxes." Phillips found the rec- colonial period, "discovered" in the base- ment of the capitol only a few years prior to Phillips's survey. According to Phillips, 18Phillips, "The Public Archives of Georgia," 440, 459-460, 455; Phillips, "Georgia Local Archives," Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1904 (Washington: Government Printing 19Phillips, "The Public Archives of Georgia," 441, Office, 1905); 592. 444, 449, 454. Historian as Archival Advocate 327

they contained valuable information re- He noted that the court records for Haber- garding appointments and passports granted sham County included valuable deeds, bills for travel into the Creek nation.20 of sale, wills, and inventories, as well as a Phillips regretted that other noteworthy group of private records—merchants' ac- documents had suffered from the vicissi- count books, cash books, day books, jour- tudes of Georgia's history and from poor nals, and ledgers. Unfortunately, the Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/52/3/320/2747824/aarc_52_3_375110x333r21123.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 handling. In Milledgeville, which preceded historian said, the court documents were Atlanta as Georgia's capital, the frequent "scattered in utter disarrangement in open removal of records, and what Phillips termed pigeonholes and packing cases." Although "the destructive work of Sherman's troops" the clerk's office had "a good set of dust- in 1864, wreaked "sad havoc . . . among proof filing cases in the vault," Phillips the loose documents" and damaged bound complained that "very few documents have material as well. A volume of eighteenth- been arranged therein." The bound vol- century wills, for example, had been "mu- umes were unlabeled and, Phillips griped, tilated by the cutting out of pages, possibly were largely maintained in a "slovenly blank, at the back." He fumed that the gaps fashion."22 in the early nineteenth-century county rec- Similarly, the archives of Clarke County, ords housed in the Milledgeville court house located in Athens, were protected in a fire- resulted not only from a court house fire in proof vault. Phillips found the original writs, 1861, but from "the inattention of the of- fifas, and orders "in good preservation, and ficers in charge and the lack of any secure mostly well arranged in metal dust-proof vault or case for the volumes and papers." filing cases." Though many of the bound Records found in the Milledgeville town volumes in the clerk's office had their bind- clerk's office, Phillips said, lacked any ings scorched in a court house fire, fortu- semblance of arrangement or care. "Some nately, Phillips declared, "no important of them have been damaged by mice, and documents appear to have been de- all of them ... are exceedingly dusty and 21 stroyed." He complimented the arrange- disagreeable to use." ment of these records which "show Phillips was glad to report that the of- evidences of much care in their keeping." fices of the county clerk and ordinary in Included in the clerk's office were bound Lexington, Oglethorpe County, were volumes of rare nineteenth-century Georgia equipped with a fireproof vault for their newspapers and "an old trunk" containing local archives. Though some of the coun- miscellaneous private manuscripts. In the ty's records were disorganized, he wrote ordinary's office Phillips encountered many happily that the original records in the or- documents filed in no special arrangement dinary's office were "well classified, tied in a set of wooden pigeonholes. The vault in packets, clearly labeled, and stacked upon contained "several trunks and cases of pri- open shelves in very good arrangement." vate papers" as well as a packing case full Similarly, the archives of Habersham County of loose newspapers, pamphlets, and man- in Clarkesville were protected in a fireproof uscripts. Among these documents was an vault. Phillips found the bound volumes "in 1823 committee report on Clarke County's fairly good order, but the original docu- regimental fund, enumerating persons lia- ments not in books are in extreme disorder, ble to drill, with fines collected and uncol- 23 with very many of them probably lost." lected.

22Phillips, "Georgia Local Archives," 555, 568, 20Ibid., 454, 451. 569, 581. 21Ibid., 440, 444, 461, 467. "Ibid., 582, 583, 584. 328 American Archivist / Summer 1989

Phillips gained many insights into the four slaves each. Only eleven families of nature of slavery on the local level from his the 330 in the county held as many as eleven survey of Georgia's records. Using Tali- bondsmen each. By 1860, however, plant- aferro County as an example, he compared ers increased their holdings both of land data drawn from the 1827 state census and and slaves. Plantations gradually en- Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/52/3/320/2747824/aarc_52_3_375110x333r21123.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 the 1860 federal census. This county, typ- croached upon the land hitherto controlled ical of the upland Georgia cotton belt, by small farmers. As a result many small showed a decrease in white population farmers moved in search of fresh lands, (2,038 to 1,693) in these years but in- "where they might live more cheaply as creases in its free black (32 to 41) and slave self-sufficient producers, having little to do (2,394 to 2,849) populations. In terms of with staples, money, or markets." By 1860 slaveholdings, Phillips identified 178 the number of slaveholding families had in- slaveholders who owned fewer than ten creased to 369, holding a total of 4,270 slaves each in 1860 as compared with 198 bondsmen. Phillips concluded that "The in the same category in 1831. In contrast, pioneer work throughout the South seems 93 slaveholders held ten or more slaves in to have been done by the yeoman class and 1860 as compared with 81 in that category the younger sons of the well to do, while in 1831. From this rough data, Phillips the wave of planters followed later and was concluded that the small holdings of slaves confined to the staple-producing areas and in this portion of Georgia "were gradually to the districts lying in reach of mar- decreasing in number and also in size, while kets."25 the large holdings were gradually increas- From his examination of Baldwin County ing in number and in size as well." Phillips records of sale and estate inventories, Phil- interpreted "this tendency as a general law lips concluded that the records of appraise- of the plantation system—that, within the ments and sales of estates "comprise the limit at which plantations grew too large to chief source from which may be had of the be manageable, the tendency in the staple- rise and fall of slave prices." Because the producing region was for the size of plan- available published data on slave prices and tations under good management to increase the economics of slavery was so "scanty until the maximum efficiency was reached, and fugitive, and often unreliable," Phil- while the size of those under weak man- lips predicted that a comparative study, agement tended to decrease until they lost juxtaposing data from throughout the slave- their complex organization and became 24 holding regions of the North and South, simple farms." "will be essential as a basis for any defin- By comparing the 1824 manuscript cen- itive economic history of slavery in Amer- sus for Crawford County with the 1860 fed- ica."26 eral enumeration, Phillips gleaned valuable His study of tax digests for Oglethorpe demographic information regarding slav- County enabled Phillips to draw conclu- ery's place in the settling of west Georgia's sions concerning not only slaveholding, but cotton belt. In 1824 the county was domi- also postwar labor and race relations in the nated by small farmers, 65% of all white Georgia Piedmont. From an average slave- families in the county held no slaves, and holding of 5 in 1794 (395 slaveholders 50% of those remaining held fewer than owned 1,980 slaves), to an average slave-

24Phillips, "The Public Archives of Georgia," 456, :5Ibid., 458. 457. •6Ibid., 464. Historian as Archival Advocate 329

holding of 12 in 1860 (549 slaveholders uscripts at the Georgia Historical Society owned 6,589 slaves), this county exhibited in Savannah. Indeed, Phillips said, "the "a fairly continuous increase in the pro- most important documentary collections" portion of Negroes to whites in the popu- were held privately. While Phillips gener- lation." Phillips pointed to an 1899 ally considered Virginia's archives more indenture agreement—one among many on accessible, he urged that state to provide Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/52/3/320/2747824/aarc_52_3_375110x333r21123.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 file in Oglethorpe County—between a some sort of finding aid—"a calendar or planter, James M. Smith, and a black, An- even a finding list for the whole body of derson Benson, to illustrate "the degree to archives." He criticized Virginia's docu- which the plantation system has been main- mentary publication program, the Virginia tained in spite of the overthrow of the in- State Papers series, as "an unsystematized stitution of slavery." In the agreement mass of heterogeneous and often worthless Benson bound himself to labor for Smith items." And Phillips found fault with Ten- for a term of five years. Resembling the nessee's archives. Aside from some news- labor contracts that blacks signed during paper collections at the Tennessee State Reconstruction, Benson agreed "to work Library and the Tennessee Historical So- faithfully" under Smith's "direction, re- ciety, he identified "no other public col- spect and obey all orders and commands" lection of material in the State worth the and "at all times demean himself orderly mention, nor any noteworthy publication of and soberly." In addition to furnishing his documents."28 apprentice with board, lodging, clothing, Phillips noted similar problems in South and fifty dollars a year as compensation, Carolina. The state had undertaken no ma- Smith agreed to teach Benson "the trade 27 jor documentary publication program and of husbandry in all its details." the strength of its archival holdings lay Phillips's insights into the condition of mostly in newspaper collections. In Georgia's archival materials enabled him in Charleston, Phillips located newspaper files 1905 to broaden his analysis to include the "of quite phenomenal extent," dating from records of the entire South. He concluded the earliest newspaper published in the col- that archival conditions in the region still ony in 1732. South Carolina's state rec- left room for vast improvement. While ords, however, located in Charleston and Phillips regretted that many of the South's Columbia, stood "in great confusion." The most valuable documents had found "ref- old volumes of colonial records at Charles- uge" in Washington and in the North, he ton, deplored Phillips, "have had their brit- was forced to admit that in these reposito- tle and broken pages mended in an atrocious ries Southern manuscripts "received more way by the pasting of a heavy white cloth care and attention than if they had remained over one side of each sheet. The cloth is in their original localities." Though his absolutely opaque. Every alternate page is earlier study of Georgia's records had un- thus blotted out of the record, and such derscored its rich holdings of public rec- volumes thereby [are] rendered almost use- ords, Phillips now complained that the state less." And despite his repeated efforts to had not yet begun to systematize the man- examine the manuscripts at the South Car- uscripts held in the capital building. And olina Historical Society in Charleston, researchers would find few valuable man-

28Phillips, "Documentary Collections and Publi- "Phillips, "Georgia Local Archives," 560, 566, cation in the Older States of the South," 203, 201, 567. 202, 202-203. 330 American Archivist / Summer 1989

Phillips found access to these records most South. Significantly, in 1928 Phillips had difficult. As in Georgia and throughout the recommended that funds be allocated to help South, most of the valuable collections of establish the collection at Chapel Hill. As South Carolina family and plantation rec- "a reward of virtue," but certainly influ- ords lay in private possession.29 enced by Phillips's endorsement of the Phillips concluded that while the South funding of the collection, Phillips was given Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/52/3/320/2747824/aarc_52_3_375110x333r21123.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 had indeed made progress in organizing and first opportunity to examine a "most won- preserving its historical materials, archival derful body of plantation material" by his management in the region remained largely old friend J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, in its infancy. Although the South held vast founder of the Southern Historical Collec- quantities of manuscripts, few historians tion.31 But this and other infant collections could gain access to them and they re- of Southern Americana would take decades mained unused. Most of these documents to mature into major repositories. rested in private hands and stood "unclas- In the years before his death in 1934, sified, undigested, unknown." Phillips Phillips continued to comb the South's complained that even the pioneer efforts of countryside in search of the plantation doc- Southern archivists had been "partly uments that he cited in his books and arti- wasted," because their "need of training, cles. He received valuable assistance in enthusiasm, and personal force" had par- collecting manuscripts from Herbert A. tially been ignored. As a result "the doc- Kellar, curator of the McCormick Histori- uments and their use have suffered cal Association. By the late 1920s, accord- accordingly." He judged the region to be ing to historian Merton L. Dillon, Phillips disadvantaged because no Southern univer- "had become a dealer in manuscripts and sity had yet begun to collect historical man- Americana as well as a scholar and collec- uscripts. Phillips hoped that Southerners tor."32 Since the turn of the century Phil- would come to grasp the broad benefits of lips had actively promoted archival practices studying history, not for "utilitarian pur- and the use of primary sources for the study pose," but "for history's sake." He feared, of Southern history. Many of the manu- however, that "from their lack of social scripts that he unearthed in the early 1900s self-consciousness" Southerners "are not likely to develop a genuine passion for pre- serving and publishing their records."30 31J. Carlyle Sitterson, "The Southern Historical Phillips's doubts ultimately proved to be Collection, 1930-1980: The Pursuit of History," The well-founded. Notwithstanding his path- Bookmark (Chapel Hill: The Friends of the Library and the Southern Historical Collection at the Univer- breaking efforts to identify, preserve, pub- sity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1981), 46-59; licize, and utilize the South's historical Mattie U. Russell, "Brief History of the Manuscript manuscripts, Southern historians continued Department and the Flowers Collection," Duke Uni- versity Library Newsletter, n.s., 24 (April 1980): 4- to encounter major difficulties in locating 5; Hamilton to Phillips, 27 October 1928, Dexter Per- sources until the 1930s. The establishment kins to Hamilton, 7 January 1929, J. G. de Roulhac of the Southern Historical Collection at the Hamilton Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina in 1930, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 32John David Smith, '"Keep 'em in a fire-proof Duke University's Manuscript Department vault'—Pioneer Southern Historians Discover Plan- in 1931, ushered in an era of systematic tation Records," South Atlantic Quarterly 78 (Sum- archival collection and management in the mer 1979): 387-391; Dillon, Ulrich Bonnell Phillips: Historian of the Old South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975), 125,126. Dillon argues that "Phillips' large reputation as a discoverer and user of" private manuscripts "rests in great measure 29Ibid., 201, 202. upon the materials Kellar helped him acquire from 30Ibid., 203, 204. 1925 to 1929." Historian as Archival Advocate 331

were employed again and again in his later Though himself a collector, Phillips en- writings. These records provided a foun- couraged Southern archives and libraries to dation for his lifelong research into the his- acquire manuscripts for the use of the broad tory of slavery and the South. They scholarly community. He implored South- reinforced his conservative social ethos and ern state legislatures to build manuscript paternalistic view of blacks. collections, to conserve them, and to staff Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/52/3/320/2747824/aarc_52_3_375110x333r21123.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 In part, Phillips's motives as a historian them with trained professionals. Although who favored the establishment of archives Phillips once aspired to a joint professor- were self-serving. An aggressive, compet- librarian position, he never performed ar- itive scholar, he sought not only to estab- chival functions to more than a limited de- lish Southern history as a research field, gree. His substantial contribution to archival but to dominate it. In order to do so, Phil- development was an insistence on adequate lips required primary sources. But as a resources for the systematic care of histor- Southern Progressive and spokesman of the ical records by trained professionals. Phil- New South, Phillips linked his region's fu- lips was an effective advocate because of ture to an understanding of its past.33 He his professional standing, his deep com- believed that his lobbying for modern ar- mitment to the use of primary materials, chival practices in the South would reap and his keen familiarity with archival con- both personal benefits as well as those for ditions in the South. Though a historian, the intellectual life of his region. Signifi- Phillips provided leadership at a time when cantly, Phillips helped lead the South away the archival profession was just beginning from antiquarianism to modern historical to emerge. As historian and archival ad- methodology. As propagandist for the sys- vocate, then, Phillips provided an impor- tematic care of Georgia's public records, tant impetus to the development of archives Phillips helped pave the way for Georgia in the South. He serves as a valuable ex- archivists Allen D. Candler, William J. ample of the role that a scholar—a historian Northen, and Lucian Lamar Knight. In 1918 sensitive to the importance of archival ma- Georgia's Department of Archives and His- terials—can make to the preservation of tory was established.34 records.

1917 survey, Mary Givens Bryan remarked: "Some "John Herbert Roper, U. B. Phillips: A Southern items they reported missing have turned up in the Mind (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1984), 67- assembling of the archives, while others reported on 89. file are today missing." See Bryan, "Recent Archival •"Commenting on Phillips's assessment of Geor- Developments in Georgia," American Archivist 16 gia's public records, as well as Maud Barker Cobb's (January 1953): 56.