American History, Southern History, Virginian History
Philip Alexander Bruce (March 7, 1856 – August 16, 1933) was an American historian who specialized in the history of the Commonwealth of
Virginia.[1] Author of over a dozen volumes of history, Bruce's scope ranged from the first Virginia settlements to the early 20th century. He is known for writing the first complete history of the
University of Virginia, descriptions of the lives of the original settlers of Virginia, and for his insights into
Thomas Jefferson's wide-ranging intellect.
Personal life
Bruce was born into a plantation family in
Charlotte County, Virginia; his younger brother was
William Cabell Bruce, later a US Senator from Maryland. Philip studied literature and history at the University of Virginia, graduating in 1876; he went on to get an
LL.B. from
Harvard University in 1879.[2] He married Elizabeth Tunstall Taylor Newton on October 19, 1896, and together had one child, a daughter.
Bruce began a long career as a published historian in 1889 with the publication of The Plantation Negro as a Freeman.[4] His most notable research came with a series of three works on seventeenth century Virginia, covering the economic, social, and institutional frameworks of the first Virginia settlers, published between 1896 and 1910.
In the last decade of his life, Bruce authored a five-volume history of the first hundred years of the University of Virginia, which is credited for expanding the historical perspective on the talents of Thomas Jefferson,[8] and co-authored a five-volume history of the Commonwealth of Virginia. He died after a long illness at his home near
Charlottesville.[9] He is remembered[2] for attempts to raise the consciousness of Northern readers to Virginia's contributions to the history of the United States through a series of letters to the New York Times on such topics as the claim of Virginia's House of Burgesses as the second elected legislature after the British Parliament[10] and the importance of Jamestown as the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.[11]
Bruce, Philip Alexander; Lyon Gardiner Tyler; Richard Lee Morton; the American Historical Society (1924).
The History of Virginia. Chicago: The American Historical Society.
^"Honorary Degree Recipients". Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) Wiki at the College of William and Mary. Archived from
the original on 2008-07-05. Retrieved 2008-03-20.