Biographical Sketch
Merrill Daniel Peterson, one of the
nation's most honored and respected historians on the age of
Jefferson has been Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation
Professor Emeritus at the
University of Virginiain Charlottesville
since his retirement in 1987. He was born on March 31, 1921,
the son of William Oscar and Alice Dwinell (Merrill) Peterson
in Manhattan, Kansas. Peterson received his bachelor's degree
from the University of Kansas in 1943 and earned a Ph.D. in
the history of American civilization from Harvard in 1950. He
taught at
Harvard,
Brandeisand Princeton Universities. At
Brandeis, he was the Harry S. Truman Professor and dean of
students before he joined the University of Virginia faculty
in 1962, succeeding another noted Jefferson scholar, Dumas
Malone, as Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of
History. He later served as chairman of the University's
Corcoran Department of History and dean of the faculty of arts
and sciences.
Peterson is the author of
The Jefferson Image in the American Mind, for which he won the Bancroft Prize in American
History and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation's gold
medal in 1961. His other publications include:
Major Crises in American History;
Democracy, Liberty and Property: The State
Constitutional Conventions of the 1820's;
Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A
Biography;
James Madison: A Biography in His Own Words;
Adams and Jefferson: A Revolutionary
Dialogue, which resulted from his Lamar lectures delivered at
Mercer University in 1975;
Olive Branch and Sword: The Compromise of
1833, from his Fleming lectures at Louisiana State
University in 1980 and
The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay and
Calhoun, from his work as a National Endowment for the
Humanities fellow at Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1980-1981.
Peterson is also editor of six books in American History
including:
Thomas Jefferson: A Profile;
The Portable Thomas Jefferson;
Thomas Jefferson Writings;
Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography;
The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom: Its
Evolution and Consequences in American Historyand
Visitors to Monticello.
In 1976, Peterson received a doctor of humane letters
degree from Washington College and was named a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1980. He is a member
of Phi Beta Kappa, the American Historical Association and the
University of Virginia's honorary Raven Society. He has served
on the board of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and
Public Policy for whom he planned a major symposium
commemorating the bicentennial of the Virginia Statute for
Religious Freedom. In 1987, he was project director for a
year-long colloquium on the humanities and the American people
in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Other organizational memberships and fellowships include: the
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, the Virginia Historical
Society, the Southern Historical Association, the Society of
American Historians, the American Antiquarian Society and the
Massachusetts Historical Society, the Guggenheim fellowship,
the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences
fellowship and the Poynter fellowship at Indiana University.
In 1974, Peterson served as scholar-in-residence at the
Bellagio Study Center in Italy and, in 1975, on the faculty of
the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies in Vienna, Austria.
In 1988-1989, he lectured on U.S. History at the National
University of Ireland in Dublin as a Fulbright Scholar and in
1993, President Clinton named him chairman of the Thomas
Jefferson Commemoration Commission.
Scope and Content
The collection contains ca. 16,000 items (15 shelf feet)
consisting of department and personal communications with
historians, university colleagues, students, friends and
academic organizations throughout the United States and from
around the world (grouped under
Correspondence); academic,
lecture and professional organization records associated with
Peterson's activities while at
Harvard,
Brandeisand the
University of Virginia(grouped under
Academia); writings, including
TMss, drafts, notes and communications with publishers
relating to the books and articles Peterson authored (grouped
under
Publications) and an assortment
of newsclippings; pamphlets; photographs (14 items); reprints;
unpublished MDP writings and background material including,
MDP notes, bibliographical listings and items relating to the
alleged
Thomas Jeffersonand
Sally Hemingsrelationship (grouped under
Miscellany).
In addition, outside of this collection under related
accessions, are a collection of photocopied letters of
Calhoun, Clay and Webster which Peterson used in his research
for The
Great Triumvirate[Mss #10718] and a tape recorded lecture "Jefferson,
the Enlightenment and the Revolution" which he delivered at a
University of Virginia student forum on October 8, 1973 [Mss
#8033-b,-c].