Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

Merrill D. Peterson Papers, Accession 12807, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library

Acquisition Information

The collection is a gift from Professor Emeritus Merrill D. Peterson

Funding Note

Funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

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 Virginia in 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 , Brandeis and 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 History and 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 , Brandeis and 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 Jefferson and Sally Hemings relationship (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].