At an earlier stage in his rather varied career, Barbour played a key role in the creation of Radio Free Europe after World War II.
For at least nine years after their marriage, as shown in the 1900 Federal census.,[1] Philip's parents and his siblings lived in the substantial Lemont family home on Second St., in Louisville along with three servants.
For example, Philip's mother, Jessie, often recounted a visit to Paris in the late 1890s where she met the German lyric poet, Rainer Maria Rilke at the studio of Auguste Rodin.
A 1929 El Paso newspaper article [18] announced that Consuelo Seggerman had been granted a divorce from Philip Barbour on the grounds of cruelty.
The article reported that Ms. Seggerman had been so badly treated by her husband that she had a nervous breakdown, that her maiden name had been restored to her, and that Mr. Barbour was believed to be living in Rome, Italy.
By this time, it is likely that Barbour had made a good start in mastering the seven languages that he would eventually achieve fluency in during his life, namely, in addition to English; Italian, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese and Russian.
Towards the end of his time in Italy, Barbour said that he succeeded in securing one or more fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation to study long range, short-wave radio broadcasting in Europe.
[27] While he was serving, his father Dr. Philip Foster Barbour died in Louisville KY (November 1, 1944) and was buried at Cave Hill Cemetery.
After the cessation of hostilities in Europe, Barbour was appointed as Chief of Political Intelligence, Berlin Sector, US Military Government, serving from 1946 to 1948.
[29] In 1948, Barbour was appointed and served briefly as Control Officer for Radio in the American Sector in Berlin after which he embarked on a world tour before returning to the US.
[30] On his return to the US, he became one of the first employees of Radio Free Europe, coordinating and supervising production of educational and historical programs by natives of the countries to whom they were broadcasting.
It was during this period that researched and wrote the books on John Smith and other aspects of the first English settlement in the Americas at Jamestown, Virginia for which he later became most notable.
As a result of the publication of Philip L. Barbour's biography of Captain John Smith,[33] his first book on the colonial experience, Barbour moved into the “forefront of the biographers of the early colonial period” in the opinion of many experts, not least being Professor David Beers Quinn, one of late 20th century's leading experts on the voyages of discovery and colonization of America.
[34] Barbour's book was described as being “close to…the definitive work on the remarkable career of a controversial man,”[35] notable for its meticulous scholarship and abundance of detail, and the “best modern biography of John Smith.
[38] Barbour's next great lasting contribution to the literature on colonial America was the posthumous publication of his collected works of John Smith.
[39] Barbour's work comprehensively replaced the previous compendium compiled in the 1880s by Edward Arber and re-published in 1910,[40] which is now widely considered to be incomplete.
Barbour's work was widely praised for its "scrupulous editing and annotations and the clear identifications of appropriation, dubious authorship and redundancy".