Biographical Note
Born in Washington, D.C., March 1, 1856, Philip Lee Phillips was raised in New Orleans and Georgia before returning with his family to Washington in 1866. His father, Philip Phillips (1807-1884), served in the House of Representatives from South Carolina before the Civil War and practiced law there afterwards, including before the Supreme Court as a prominent local attorney. Phillip Lee Phillips entered Columbia College Law School in 1874, but left school a year later for a position on the staff of the Library of Congress. In 1879 he was listed as an official cataloger. Prior to that, his salary had been paid without his knowledge by his father. He soon developed an expertise in cartography, leading to an appointment in 1897 as superintendent of the Hall of Maps and Charts in the new Library of Congress building and in 1906 as chief of the Maps and Charts Division. In 1899 Phillips married Imogen D. Hutchins. He produced numerous bibliographies and atlases, including the first lists of maps and atlases in the Library of Congress, where he was employed at the time of his death on January 4, 1924. Among his principal works were A List of Geographical Atlases in the Library of Congress(4 vols., 1909-1920) andLists of Maps of America in the Library of Congress(1901).