Scope and Content Note
The Victoria Phillips Collection is composed of materials assembled by the scholar during research and curatorial projects. Her cross-disciplinary interests in performing arts, politics, and international relations have brought together historical documents such as FBI files and transcripts of hearings convened by the U.S. House of Representatives, alongside documentation of artistic performances and touring abroad. There is also a strong set of secondary research publications. Collection strengths include materials on the Martha Graham Dance Company during 1949-1960 and its Asian tours in the 1950s as well as on New Dance Group performances and dancers. The collection also contains photocopies of early newspaper articles, photographs, publications, interview notes and transcripts, and copies of Phillips's publications based on this research. The collection is organized in nine series.
The series FBI Files is composed of photocopies of the FBI's investigations of artists, other individuals, and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, obtained by historians Victoria Phillips and Eric Foner through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Some files have been annotated by Phillips. Similarly, the series U.S. House of Representatives Special Committee Hearings contains photocopies of the published hearings conducted by the U.S. House of Representatives investigations of communist propaganda, communist activities, and other organizations, individuals, and events considered un-American at the time.
The series Martha Graham Dance Company consists primarily of reproductions of archival correspondence, receipts and financial reports, contracts, program planning, theatre specs, and other materials related to performances of the Graham company. Highlights of this series include the 1946 tour promoted by Sol Hurok, the 1946 summer dance program hosted at Connecticut College, and the U.S. Department of State-sponsored tours to Asia in the 1950s. The New Dance Group series includes materials reproduced from the New Dance Group (NDG) archives before the NDG collection was donated to the Library of Congress in 2009, soon after NDG ceased operation. Some of the items found here were not among the papers transferred to the Library of Congress.
The series Oral Histories holds primarily transcripts of interviews of seminal artists conducted by Victoria Phillips during the course of research. Additionally, there are several excerpts of interviews conducted by others, in which case the name of the interviewer is noted along with the interviewee.
The Photographs series includes primarily later reproductions of original materials or images. Some items are composite scans of multiple images. These photographs were collected through Victoria Phillips's archival research as well as her direct communications with artists active in the 1930s through the Cold War. Especially plentiful are photographs of choreography and studio portraits of seminal dance artists Mary Anthony, Joseph Gifford ("Joe"), Jane Dudley, Martha Graham, Muriel Manings, and Sophie Maslow.
The three series titled Subject Files, Clippings, and Publications constitute much of Phillips's research files as well as work product, organized either by topic in the first case, by year in the second, or by author in the last. Three folders within the Subject Files series document the planning and execution of the "Dance Is a Weapon" exhibit curated by Phillips for the Centre national de la danse in Paris in 2007. The chapters, complete issues, and excerpts of publications in the Publications series constitute an overview of literature for study of dance as a political force. Most of the items are reproductions or printouts from online resources. Final publications and drafts authored by Victoria Phillips can also be found in the Publications series.