Charles E. Peterson

Charles Emil Peterson (1906–2004) is widely considered to be a seminal figure in professionalizing the practice of historic preservation in the United States.

He is referred to as the "founding father" of the professional advocation of historic preservation, the "godfather of preservation," and an "extraordinary preservationist" who made important contributions to the knowledge of early American building practices, helped create the profession of the preservation architect, and passionately advocated for the retention and restoration of the American built heritage.

According to Jacques Dalibard, a professor at McGill University School of Architecture, "with James Marston Fitch, I cannot think of two people who had more influence on historic preservation in North America."

Peterson was raised in Madison, Minnesota, and received his bachelor's degree in architecture in the early 1920s from the University of Minnesota.

In 1929, he began a thirty-three year tenure with the National Park Service.

In 1931, his efforts were instrumental in saving the Moore House, the site of the British surrender, in Yorktown, Virginia.

While documenting this building, Peterson created the prototype for the historic structure report, the basic format of which is still in use.

Peterson is perhaps best remembered for establishing the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), a federal documentation program that is still active and which has spawned the Historic American Engineering Record and the Historic American Landscape Survey.

On November 13, 1933, while he was the Chief of the Eastern Division for the National Park Service, Peterson wrote a memo to the director which became the charter for the program and successfully garnered funds from the Civil Works Administration the following month.

HABS targeted unemployed architects, draftsmen, and photographers to make as complete a record as possible of "the rapidly disappearing examples of early architecture and historic structures throughout the country."

This program was credited as "the first major step upon the part of the Federal Government toward the cataloging and preservation of historic structures."

The first HABS survey work began in January 1934 and later that year was formalized as a joint agreement with the American Institute of Architects and the Library of Congress.

The HABS program has continued nearly unabated to the present.

Peterson and NPS historian Roy E. Appelman were assigned to Philadelphia in early 1947 to advise the Philadelphia National Shrines Park Commission on the national park being proposed for the area surrounding Independence Hall.

Peterson was the uncredited primary author and editor of the Shrines Commission's 7-volume final report to Congress (December 1947), which was incorporated into the enabling legislation under which Independence National Historical Park was created.

Peterson returned to Philadelphia in the early 1950s to work at INHP.

While there, he helped restore Carpenters' Hall and re-create Library Hall, and directed much of the preservation-related activity of the National Park Service in the region.

In the 1950s, Philadelphia was in decline and the oldest neighborhoods, dating to the 18th century, were being abandoned and left to decay.

It was in such a place that Peterson decided to purchase two row homes in 1954, one of which became his home.

The area, which is now known as "Society Hill," is today one of the most desirable areas to live in Philadelphia.

Peterson not only helped name the area, but his tireless preservation advocacy secured the revitalization of Society Hill by motivating his friends and acquaintances to buy property there.

During his life, Peterson constantly advocated for HABS, and was instrumental in restarting the program in 1957 and later saved it from oblivion when the Reagan administration threatened to pull funding.

The end result was a stronger program with greatly increased funding.

The 1960s were an extremely productive time for Peterson.

In the 1960s, restoration—defined as the "scraping" of later layers of historic fabric in order to restore the appearance of a building to an arbitrary date—was the status quo and represented the majority of preservation work in the United States.

In the mid-1960s, Peterson was appointed as an adjunct professor to the fledgling historic preservation program at Columbia University where he taught early-American building technology.

He worked closely with James Marston Fitch to build this program into the first graduate degree program in historic preservation in the country.

Columbia's program became the model which spawned the tens of graduate and undergraduate programs in historic preservation that now exist across the United States.

The AIA inducted him into the College of Fellows in 1962.

He retired from the National Park Service in 1962, but continued to live and work from his row house located on Spruce Street.

During Peterson's tenure at the National Park Service, he educated numerous students about historic preservation.

He contributed to many scholarly conferences, including the Second International Congress of Architects and Technicians of Historical Monuments in Venice in 1964.

It was at this conference that the enormously influential Venice Charter was created, which established much of preservation philosophy that exists to this day and has become ingrained in the National Park Service's Secretary of the Interior's Standards for preservation.

Peterson, along with the entire U.S. delegation rejected the charter, however, due to its European focus and the radical emphasis on preservation instead of restoration.

During his long career, Peterson received numerous awards for his service including the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award (1966) and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) medal for "vision and determination" (1979) and the Presidential Citation (1990).

(Independence Mall remained a state park until 1974.) Peterson oversaw the moving of the Free Quaker Meetinghouse, the only building spared in the creation of the Mall, to accommodate the widening of 5th Street.

The Venice Charter was a radical shift in preservation philosophy that would not become fully accepted in the United States until the 1980s.

Peterson also served on the Committee on Principles and Guidelines for Historic Preservation established by the National Trust which helped influence the future direction of the preservation movement.

It was in this era that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania demolished all the 19th- and early 20th-century buildings on the 3 blocks north of Independence Hall, to create an open European-style mall.

He opposed the demolition of important 19th-century buildings within INHP, but did not prevail.