Merrill D. Peterson

Merrill D. Peterson

Merrill D. Peterson, 88, a University of Virginia history professor, former
Chair of the History Department and Dean of the Faculty of the College of
Arts and Sciences at the University and noted Jeffersonian scholar, died
Wednesday, September 23, 2009, in Charlottesville.

As the author or editor of 37 books, Dr. Peterson explored what he described
as the question of "what American thought and experience could contribute to
an understanding of American democracy and its future." His work focused on
Thomas Jefferson and included studies of what he termed the "second
generation of American statesmen and of Lincoln's career in American thought
and imagination."

Dr. Peterson gained widespread recognition with his first book The Jefferson
Image in the American Mind which focused on Jefferson's influence on the
"career of American democracy." This book, which one reviewer called "a
major contribution to American intellectual history," was awarded the
Bancroft Prize from Columbia University and the Gold Medal of the Jefferson
Memorial Association in 1960. Dr. Peterson, however considered his second
book, a one volume biography of Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson and the New
Nation, to be his best book.

In The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, Dr. Peterson wrote
about the three major players who dominated American history in the period
leading up to the Civil War. In Lincoln in American Memory, he explored how
six generations of Americans had interpreted the Lincoln legacy. This book,
which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1995, was described as
"richly cataloguing the resounding image, for scholars and civil society
alike, of the martyred president."

Dr. Peterson was born in Manhattan, Kansas, and graduated from the
University of Kansas in 1943. His mother ran a boarding house for University
students to put her three sons through college. After joining the Navy and
training at the Harvard Business School, he served as a purser on ships in
the South Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific. After his discharge in 1946,
he entered the doctoral program in American Civilization at Harvard
University with the help of the GI bill.

Early in his career, Peterson taught at Brandeis University and Princeton
University. He came to the University of Virginia as the Thomas Jefferson
Foundation Professor of History in 1962 and served as Chair of the
Department of History from 1966 until 1972. In an interview in 2005, Dr.
Peterson noted "Once I got to University of Virginia, I never wanted to
leave." He also served as Dean of the Faculty of the College of Arts and
Sciences from 1981 until 1985.

In 1996, at the age of 76, Dr. Peterson joined the Peace Corps, serving in
Armenia. On his return, he wrote a book Starving Armenians: America and the
Armenian Genocide, 1915 - 1930 and After, describing the American response
to the genocide including the unprecedented philanthropic effort to help the
Armenian people. He wrote "The wholly unprecedented American humanitarian
response to the Armenian genocide, though soon forgotten, merits a permanent
place in American memory. It lit a candle before 'the blackest page in
history' and sustained the surviving remnant of the Armenian people amid
tumultuous waste and destruction."

In 1999, Dr. Peterson wrote a memoir of his early interest in American
intellectual thought, which he traced to his reading of the weekly magazine
the New Republic. He wrote "I have often reflected that my scholarly
destiny, indeed my career, was fixed by the lucky choice of a doctoral
dissertation topic. And that, in turn, might have been the result of my
early readingover many yearsof the New Republic."

Dr. Peterson traveled widely speaking on Thomas Jefferson and American
history. He taught at University College Dublin from 1988 until 1989 and at
the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies. In retirement, Dr. Peterson
traveled throughout Europe, the American west, and New England, often with
his close friend Nini Almy.

Survivors include two sons, Jeffrey W. Peterson, of Falls Church, Virginia,
and Kent M. Peterson of Lenexa, Kansas and a grandchild, James W. Peterson.
His wife of 51 years, Jean H. Peterson, died in 1995.

Dr. Peterson's awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship (1962 - 1963),
Fellowship to the Center of the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
(1968-1969); Fellow to the National Endowment for Humanities and National
Humanities Center (1980-1981), L.H.D. Marietta College (1982), Phi Beta
Kappa Book Award (1994), Virginia Foundation for the Humanities 20th
Anniversary Award (1994), National First Freedom Award (1997), and the
Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Virginia (2005). He also
served as Chairperson and Executive Director of the Thomas Jefferson
Commemoration Commission in 1994-1994.

Other notable books include Thomas Jefferson: A Profile; Adams and
Jefferson, a Revolutionary Dialogue; The Political Writings of Thomas
Jefferson; Olive Branch and the Sword: The Compromise of 1833; Thomas
Jefferson: Writings; and John Brown: The Legend Revisited.

A memorial service will be held Westminister Canterbury of the Blue Ridge, 2
p.m. Sunday, September 27, 2009, in the Rotunda Room.

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