The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 91, July 1987 - April, 1988 Page: 102

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

to 1929, Phillips supervised Gilbert H. Barnes's pathbreaking disserta-
tion on the evangelical origins of abolitionism west of New England. The
Anti-Slavery Impulse, 1830 -1844, published in 1934 with Phillips's
assistance, became "one of those rare landmark monographs that change
understanding of a period and stimulate further research" (p. 115), in-
cluding some of Dillon's own work. Another of Phillips's graduate students,
Dwight Lowell Dumond, succeeded his mentor at Michigan and directed
Dillon's own dissertation.
Phillips's pioneering work in southern economic and social history
depended largely on the zeal with which he sought out privately owned
manuscript collections at a time when such archives as the Southern
Historical Collection at Chapel Hill did not yet exist. Because of Phillips's
efforts, one of the largest manuscript collections for the study of planters
and plantations in Virginia-the Massie family papers-found an unlikely
depository in the Barker Texas History Center in Austin. Phillips and
his friend Herbert A. Kellar, after discovering the Massie collection "in
an old mill near Lynchburg" in 1926 (p. 124), purchased it for $275.
The following year Phillips delivered a lecture in Austin, where Professor
Charles W. Ramsdell arranged for him to sell the bulk of the collection
to the University of Texas for $1,600, a profit margin of almost 500 per-
cent. It seems that Phillips was capable of greater entrepreneurial zeal
and skill than he attributed to most antebellum planters.
The University of Texas at Austin DAVID BOWMAN
Essays on Walter Prescott Webb and the Teaching of History. Edited by Dennis
Reinhartz and Stephen E. Maizlish. (College Station, Tex.: Texas
A&M University Press for the University of Texas at Arlington, 1985.
Pp. 101. Preface, introduction, illustrations, notes, postscript. $17.50.)
Walter Prescott Webb in Stephens County. By Mike Kingston. (Austin: Eakin
Press, 1985. Pp. xiv + 88. Preface, acknowledgments, photographs,
map, bibliography, index. $9.95.)
The Dennis Reinhartz and Stephen E. Maizlish collection of essays
proves that the Walter P. Webb "well" has not completely run dry.
Although the authors prime the pump with material published in previous
biographies of Webb, these essays support the idea of Webb's long-lasting
influence on the history profession. It is noteworthy that his continued
impact stems not only from his professional accomplishments, but also
from the number of people whose lives he touched.
One such individual was George Wolfskill. In a personalized introduc-
tion, this former Webb student provides a character sketch of Webb as

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