Bruce family papers, 1880/1951

Access and use

Location of collection:
University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept.
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library
University of Virginia
P.O. Box 400110
170 McCormick Rd
Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4110
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Special Collections Public Services & Reference Staff
Phone: (434) 243-1776
Fax: (434) 924-4968
Restrictions:

The collection is open for research use.

Terms of access:

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.

Preferred citation:

MSS 16876,Bruce family papers, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library.

Summary

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.
Creator:
Bruce, Philip Alexander, 1856-1933 and Bruce, Elizabeth Tunstall Taylor Newton, 1856-1940
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

MSS 16876,Bruce family papers, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library.

Background

Scope and content:

UVA Librarian to Shepperson (son-in-law of Philip Alexander Bruce)

Similar to manuscripts in MSS 38-207. Also overlaps with MSS 2889

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.

Acquisition information:

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.

Physical facet:
These are not all housed together in the stacks.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard