Title: Burr W. Phillips Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1940-1956

Creator:

• Phillips, Burr W., 1892-1960

Call Number: Mss 46

Quantity: 0.4 c.f. (1 archives box)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers of Burr Phillips, a University of Wisconsin professor of history and education, including articles, lectures, reports, and correspondence chiefly concerning post-World War II education in Germany. The papers also include correspondence relating to Phillips' tenure as editor of the “Teacher's Section” of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00046

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Burr Wendell Phillips was a leading authority on the teaching of social studies during the 1940s and 1950s. Born in Rock River, Wisconsin, June 14, 1892, he interspersed his own education with periods of teaching in Wisconsin elementary and secondary schools. He attended Oshkosh State Normal School in 1912 and then taught at Bear Creek and at Ripon, Wisconsin. In 1921, he received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin and in 1922, his M.A. He taught at Wisconsin as an assistant in history and then as a professor of the teaching of history. He was appointed professor of education and history in 1946.

Mr. Phillips became particularly knowledgeable on the subject of education in Germany by serving as a consultant to the U.S. Office of Military Government there. He spent several months in Germany in 1947, 1948, 1949, 1951, and 1954.

A participant in the activities of several educational associations, he was a member of the American Historical Association, the National Education Association, Phi Beta Kappa, and Phi Delta Kappa; a director of the Wisconsin Council of Social Studies; president and director of the National Council for the Social Studies and editor of their Tenth Yearbook, “In Service Growth of Social Studies Teachers,” 1939; and editor of the “Teacher's Section” of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 1939-1942.

Mr. Phillips was an active member of the Episcopal Church in both Milwaukee and Madison. He never married. He retired from the University of Wisconsin in May, 1960, and died in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 1 of that year.

The Burr W. Phillips Papers consist of articles, lectures, reports, outlines, correspondence, and a variety of other materials dating from 1940 to 1956. Although they chiefly relate to his observations of post-World War II education in Germany, the documents also concern the Old Catholic Church in Germany, post-war conditions there, the “Teacher's Section” of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, and the Fifth Delegate Assembly of the World Organization of the Teaching Profession which Mr. Phillips attended in Malta in 1951.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Sarah Hughes, Madison, Wisconsin, June 20, 1961.

Processing Information

Processed by Karen Baumann, April 14, 1969.

	Articles, lectures, reports, and outlines
Box   1 Folder   1	1940-1941; 1947-1948
Box   1 Folder   2	1949 (none for 1950)
Box   1 Folder   3	1951-1952; 1954; undated
	German Education Studies
Box   1 Folder   4	Arrangements and miscellaneous, 1947-1952; 1956; undated
Box   1 Folder   5	Background Information
Box   1 Folder   6	Mississippi Valley Historical Review Correspondence, 1940
Box   1 Folder   7	Miscellaneous, 1949-1956, undated