Edith Philips

Edith Philips (November 3, 1892 – July 19, 1983) was an American writer and academic of French literature. Her research focused on eighteenth-century French literature and French emigration to the United States. She was a Guggenheim Fellow (1928) and a professor of French at Goucher College and Swarthmore College. In 1932, she published The Good Quaker in French Legend. She served as the acting dean of women at Swarthmore and was later appointed the Susan W. Lippincott Professor of French in 1941. Philips was the founding chair of the Department of Modern Languages at Swarthmore, serving in this position from 1949 to 1960.

Edith Philips
Born(1892-11-03)November 3, 1892
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedJuly 19, 1983(1983-07-19) (aged 90)
Crozer-Chester Medical Center, Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S.
AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship (1928)
Academic background
Alma mater
ThesisLes réfugiés bonapartistes en Amérique (1815–1830) (1923)
Academic work
Institutions
Main interests
  • 18th-century French literature French emigration
Notable worksThe Good Quaker in French Legend

Early life and education

Edith Philips was born November 3, 1892 in Boston, Massachusetts[1] to Mary Durham of Yorklyn and Jesse E. Philips of East Nantmeal Township.[2] Her mother was a school teacher who helped assist her husband's operations.[3] Her father served as an instructor of mathematics and was the assistant headmaster for two years at the Rutgers Preparatory School before opening the Philips Tutoring School in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 1927.[4]

Philips earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1913 from Goucher College. She earned a Doctor of Philosophy from University of Paris in 1923.[5] She completed her dissertation entitled Les réfugiés bonapartistes en Amérique (1815-1830).[6]

Career

Philips joined the Goucher College faculty as an assistant professor of French in 1923.[5] She conducted research in France the summer of 1927.[4] Philips was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1928 to study "the Quaker as a type in French literature, chiefly in the eighteenth century."[5] For her fellowship, she studied in Paris and Russia. In 1930, Philips, then an assistant professor of Romance languages at Goucher, was conducting an "exhaustive study" on French emigration to the United States where she uncovered much on the life of Louis Girardin, the first head of the Maryland Academy of Science and friend of Thomas Jefferson.[7]

Philips started at Swarthmore College in 1930 as an associate professor of French.[8][9] She became a full professor in 1934. Philips served as the acting dean of women from 1938 to 1939. She was appointed Susan W. Lippincott Professor of French in 1941. Philips was the founding chair of the Swarthmore Department of Modern languages from December 1949 until 1960. She retired in 1961. Philips was subsequently recognized as a professor emerita at Swarthmore.[9]

Personal life

Philips' sister Amy was a director of the Newington Hospital for Crippled Children in Newington, Connecticut. Her brother J. Evan Philips was a private school teacher in St. Louis, Missouri.[3] She died after a surgery at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Chester, Pennsylvania on July 19, 1983.[9]

Selected works

Books
  • Philips, Edith (1926). Louis Hue Girardin and Nicholas Gouin Dufief and their relations with Thomas Jefferson: an unknown episode of the French emigration in America. Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Philips, Edith (1926). Poesies Francaises 1860–1925 (in French). New York: F.S. Crofts and Company.
  • Philips, Edith (1932). The Good Quaker in French Legend. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  • Becker, George J.; Philips, Edith (1971). Paris and the Arts, 1851-1896. New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801406553.[10]

References
  1. "Edith Philips". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved May 14, 2018.
  2. "Former School Director Dies". The News Journal. Wilmington, Delaware. May 15, 1945. Retrieved May 14, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. "Mrs. Jesse E. Philips". The Philadelphia Inquirer. March 1, 1948. Retrieved May 14, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. "Dr. Edith Philips Is On Way to France". The Central New Jersey Home News. New Brunswick, New Jersey. June 11, 1927. Retrieved May 14, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. "Guggenheim Awards Won By Three Baltimoreans". The Baltimore Sun. March 19, 1928. Retrieved May 14, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. Reviews of Dissertation:
  7. Scarboriugh, Katherine (October 26, 1930). "A French Refugee in Old Baltimore". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved May 14, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. "University Women Will Hear Talks Of College Professors". The Morning News. Wilmington, Delaware. February 4, 1931. Retrieved May 14, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. "Edith Philips, professor emerita, dies at 90". Swarthmore College Bulletin: 18.
  10. Reviews of Paris and the Arts, 1851-1896:
    • Niess, Robert J. (1973). "Review of Paris and the Arts, 1851-1896: From the Goncourt Journal". Nineteenth-Century French Studies. 1 (4): 253–255. JSTOR 23535981.
    • Foote, Edward (October 17, 1971). "Parisian freak show: Paris and the Arts, 1851-1896: From the Goncourt Journal". Chicago Tribune.
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