Bruce family papers
Dates
- Creation: 1880-1951
Creator
- Bruce, Philip Alexander, 1856-1933 (Person)
- Bruce, Elizabeth Tunstall Taylor Newton, 1856-1940 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research use.
Conditions Governing Use
The baby album contains photographs and gloves should be worn for handling these photographs. The scrapbook in Box 1 and the removed contents in Box 2 should be viewed together.
Biographical / Historical
Philip A. Bruce (1856-1933) was a historian, essayist, and poet of Scotch descent. The son of Charles and Sarah Seddon Bruce, Philip spent his youth at Staunton Hall Plantation in Charlotte County, Virginia. Deeply influenced by the social and cultural life of the plantation, Bruce received a good education from various tutors. Later, he attended Norwood Academy; and then the University of Virginia from 1873 to 1875. He obtained a Bachelor of Law degree from Harvard in 1879.
Bruce's career was varied and colorful. His first position as editorial writer for The Richmond Times brought him recognition as a promising writer. As corresponding secretary of the Virginia Historical Society, Bruce played a major role editing its quarterly publication. Bruce never taught, but devoted his full creative energies to writing. In 1896 his major work The Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century appeared. Bruce spent time in England to research colonial Virginia records. He published a social and institutional history of Virginia and a History of the University of Virginia (5 vols.) in 1921. For additional biographical information, see Darrett B. Rutman, "Philip Alexander Bruce: A Divided Mind of the South" Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, LXVIII (Oct. 1960), pp. 387-408.
Full Extent
10.6 Cubic Feet (2 legal size document boxes in Series 1. 10 legal document boxes in Series 2. One letter document box and one small flat box in Series 3. One legal document box and one small flat box in Series 4.) : These are not all housed together in the stacks.
Language of Materials
English
Metadata Rights Declarations
- License: This record is made available under an Universal 1.0 Public Domain Dedication Creative Commons license. The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library of the University of Virginia makes its bibliographic records and the metadata contained therein available for public use under the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Designation.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Additions ViU-2024-0136 and ViU-2025-0012 were purchases from Black Swan Books to the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia Library on 16 July, 2024 and 15 November 2025.
MSS 2889, -a,-b,-c and was a gift to Small Special Collections by his daughter, Mrs. Archibald B. Shepperson, in 1948.
MSS 38-207 provenance is unknown.
Subject
Genre / Form
- Title
- Bruce family papers
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Ellen Welch
- Date
- 2025-03-25
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library Repository
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library
P.O. Box 400110
University of Virginia
Charlottesville Virginia 22904-4110 United States