{{short description|American educator and writer}} {{Use American English|date=May 2018}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2018}} {{Infobox academic |name=Edith Philips |image=Edith Philips.jpg|birth_date= {{Birth date|1892|11|3}}|birth_place=Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.|death_date={{Death date and age|1983|07|19|1892|11|3}}|death_place=Crozer-Chester Medical Center, Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S.|awards=Guggenheim Fellowship {{small|(1928)}}|alma_mater={{Plainlist| * Goucher College {{small|(B.A., 1913)}} * University of Paris {{small|(Ph.D. 1923)}}}} |thesis_title=Les réfugiés bonapartistes en Amérique (1815–1830) |thesis_url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Les_r%C3%A9fugi%C3%A9s_bonapartistes_en_Am%C3%A9riqu.html?id=lF_TmQEACAAJ |thesis_year=1923 |workplaces={{plainlist| *Goucher College *Swarthmore College}} |main_interests={{flatlist|*18th-century French literature French emigration}} |notable_works=''The Good Quaker in French Legend''}}
'''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.
== Early life and education == Edith Philips was born November 3, 1892, in Boston, Massachusetts<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/edith-philips/|title=Edith Philips|website=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation|access-date=2018-05-14}}</ref> to Mary Durham of Yorklyn and Jesse E. Philips of East Nantmeal Township.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/20042907/the_news_journal/|title=Former School Director Dies|date=1945-05-15|work=The News Journal|access-date=2018-05-14|location=Wilmington, Delaware|language=en|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> Her mother was a school teacher who helped assist her husband's operations.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/20042929/the_philadelphia_inquirer/|title=Mrs. Jesse E. Philips|date=1948-03-01|work=The Philadelphia Inquirer|access-date=2018-05-14|language=en|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/20042834/the_central_new_jersey_home_news/|title=Dr. Edith Philips Is On Way to France|date=1927-06-11|work=The Central New Jersey Home News|access-date=2018-05-14|location=New Brunswick, New Jersey|language=en|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>
Philips earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1913 from Goucher College. She earned a Doctor of Philosophy from University of Paris in 1923.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/20042804/the_baltimore_sun/|title=Guggenheim Awards Won By Three Baltimoreans|date=1928-03-19|work=The Baltimore Sun|access-date=2018-05-14|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> She completed her dissertation entitled ''Les réfugiés bonapartistes en Amérique (1815-1830)''.<ref name=":3">Reviews of Dissertation:
* {{Cite journal|last=de|first=Villiers Du Terrage, Marc|date=1924|title=Les Réfugiés bonapartistes en Amérique.|url=http://www.persee.fr/doc/jsa_0037-9174_1924_num_16_1_3776_t1_0399_0000_3|journal=Journal de la société des américanistes|language=fr-FR|volume=16|issue=1}}</ref>
== Career == Philips joined the Goucher College faculty as an assistant professor of French in 1923.<ref name=":2" /> She conducted research in France the summer of 1927.<ref name=":1" /> Philips was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1928 to study "the Quaker as a type in French literature, chiefly in the eighteenth century."<ref name=":2" /> 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.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/20043015/the_baltimore_sun/|title=A French Refugee in Old Baltimore|last=Scarboriugh|first=Katherine|date=1930-10-26|work=The Baltimore Sun|access-date=2018-05-14|language=en|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>
Philips started at Swarthmore College in 1930 as an associate professor of French.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/20042887/the_morning_news/|title=University Women Will Hear Talks Of College Professors|date=1931-02-04|work=The Morning News|access-date=2018-05-14|location=Wilmington, Delaware|language=en|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite journal|title=Edith Philips, professor emerita, dies at 90|journal=Swarthmore College Bulletin|page=18|url=http://triptych.brynmawr.edu/utils/getfile/collection/SC_Alumni/id/2729/filename/2725.pdfpage/page/20}}</ref> 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.<ref name=":4" />
== 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.<ref name=":0" /> She died after a surgery at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Chester, Pennsylvania, on July 19, 1983.<ref name=":4" />
== Selected works ==
=== Books ===
* {{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C_6wAAAAIAAJ|title=Louis Hue Girardin and Nicholas Gouin Dufief and their relations with Thomas Jefferson: an unknown episode of the French emigration in America|last=Philips|first=Edith|date=1926|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|language=en}} * {{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H6gLdEcT7eMC|title=Poesies Francaises 1860–1925|last=Philips|first=Edith|date=1926|publisher=F.S. Crofts and Company|location=New York|language=fr}} * {{Cite book|title=The Good Quaker in French Legend|last=Philips|first=Edith|date=1932|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|location=Philadelphia|language=en}} * {{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/parisarts185100gonc|url-access=registration|title=Paris and the Arts, 1851-1896|last1=Becker|first1=George J.|last2=Philips|first2=Edith|date=1971|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=New York|isbn=9780801406553 }}<ref>Reviews of ''Paris and the Arts, 1851-1896'': * {{Cite journal|last=Niess|first=Robert J.|date=1973|title=Review of Paris and the Arts, 1851-1896: From the Goncourt Journal|jstor=23535981|journal=Nineteenth-Century French Studies|volume=1|issue=4|pages=253–255}} * {{Cite news|title=Parisian freak show: Paris and the Arts, 1851-1896: From the Goncourt Journal|last=Foote|first=Edward|date=1971-10-17|work=Chicago Tribune}} </ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links == * [https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/edith-philips/ Guggenheim Fellow Profile]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Philips, Edith}} Category:1892 births Category:1983 deaths Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers Category:20th-century American women writers Category:Academics from Maryland Category:Academics from Massachusetts Category:Academics from Pennsylvania Category:American women non-fiction writers Category:Educators from Massachusetts Category:Exophonic writers Category:Goucher College alumni Category:Goucher College faculty and staff Category:Historians of French literature Category:Scholars of French literature Category:Swarthmore College faculty Category:University of Paris alumni Category:Writers from Boston Category:French-language American writers Category:20th-century American women academics