Phillips, Wilbur Carey

Wilbur Carey Phillips was born March 10, 1880, in Nunda, New York, and educated at Colgate Academy and Harvard University, graduating from the latter in 1904. He worked as secretary of the New York Milk Committee, 1907-1911 and as secretary of the Milwaukee Child Welfare Commission, 1911-1912. In both positions he concentrated on improving child health by securing clean milk and educating mothers in the principles of child hygiene. Years later his concept of an "educational health center" was cited in VISTA publications.

Drawing on his experience in these two positions, he began to develop a concept of community organization that he called the "social unit plan." His plan, completed in 1914, envisioned a democratic neighborhood structure through which local residents could participate directly in the control of community affairs without sacrificing any of the advantages of technical expertise. With the support of individuals such as Herbert Croly, Dr. Richard Cabot, and Dr. S. S. Goldwater, he established the National Social Unit Organization (NSUO) with himself as executive director. The NSUO decided to sponsor a three-year demonstration project and selected Cincinnati as the site for the experiment. Phillips headed the Mohawk-Brighton Social Unit Organization in a 31-block area of the city from 1917-1920. Despite its success in improving neighborhood health care, the city withdrew its support and the project was terminated.

Determined to continue his development of the social unit plan, Phillips turned down positions that would have distracted a part of his energies and spent the remainder of his life as an unsalaried "social inventor" (the term was applied to him by Wesley C. Mitchell). Hoping to establish the social unit on a larger scale than it had been tested in Cincinnati, he began to emphasize its economic potential as a way of organizing consumers. He set up a "Committee for Guiding Consumers in Their Purchase of Foods" to support his program. In 1927, under the leadership of Fred M. Feiker and Leland R. Robinson, the committee became the Consumers and Producers Foundation but it was short-lived, succumbing to the stock market crash of 1929. In 1933 he reported to the Social Science Research Council on "A Study of Criteria for Judging National Consumption" at the invitation of the Council's president, Wesley C. Mitchell. Again he emphasized the importance of social units conveying to consumers the expertise of scientists and technicians.

In 1940 he published Adventuring for Democracy, in which he described the development of the social unit experiment in Cincinnati. Later he organized the Social Unit Institute as a non-profit research and educational body to promote development and application of the social unit plan.

Lack of adequate financial support, complicated by the need to care for his ailing wife, limited Phillips' activities during the last 20 years of his life. He died in New York City in 1967.

Elsie La Grange Cole was born in Albany, New York, on September 24, 1879, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles W. Cole. She attended Albany public schools and graduated from Vassar College in 1901. After teaching English for two years in Albany High School she moved to New York City, where she became involved in the women's trade union movement, first as an organizer of girls' clubs for the National Association of Women Workers and then (1908-1911) as placement secretary at the Manhattan Trade School for Girls. She was active in the Triangle shirtwaist strike in 1909l

She married Wilbur Phillips on May 19, 1911, and served as his assistant at the Milwaukee Child Welfare Commission. The Phillips were both active in Socialist Party political affairs; Elsie joined Mrs. Victor Berger in speaking at suffrage rallies on several occasions. The rest of her life was spent collaborating with her husband, developing and promoting the social unit plan. Her health began to fail in the mid-1940s. She suffered a stroke in 1948 that left her mostly bedridden until her death on April 10, 1961.

The Phillips had one daughter, Joan.

From the guide to the Wilbur C. and Elsie C. Phillips papers, 1849-1965, (University of Minnesota Libraries. Social Welfare History Archives [swha])