Phillips, Paul C. (Paul Chrisler), 1883-1956

Paul Chrisler Phillips was born in Bloomfield, Indiana, in 1883. He spent his youth in Nebraska, but returned to Indiana with his family in 1895. There he entered high school and experimented with sheep raising and wheat growing.

His interests changed from farming to history and in 1906 he graduated with a degree in history from Indana University. He went on for his master's degree there and then received his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois in 1911. His doctoral dissertation was titled The West in the Diplomacy of the American Revolution .

In 1911 Phillips married Alice Martin of New Harmony, Indiana.

That same year he accepted a position as instructor in history at the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana. Before 1936 he was chairman of the department of History and Political Science at the University. In 1936 and 1937 he served as Executive Vice-President. He resigned his position late in 1937 following a published accusation that he assaulted a female Works Progress Administration employee. Phillips filed a libel suit against the former student who made the accusation public. The case was decided through a second jury trial in 1938, the finding in Phillips' favor. He immediately filed for reinstatement to the University but the Montana State Board of Education denied his application. Phillips subsequently filed suit against the State of Montana seeking reinstatement. This case reached the Montana Supreme Court, who, in 1944, directed that Phillips be reinstated to the University. During his time away from the University (1938 to 1945) Phillips was employed by several federal agencies and wrote biographies of famous Montanans for the Dictionary of American Biography . He returned to teaching at the University of Montana in 1946.

Over the course of his career Paul Phillips edited numerous books regarding Montana history and republication of historical Montana documents. He retired from the University in 1954 and died two years later on December 23, 1956.

From the guide to the Paul Chrisler Phillips papers, 1784-1982, (University of Montana--Missoula Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library Archives and Special Collections)