Pegg, Carl H. (Carl Hamilton), 1905-....

Carl Hamilton Pegg was born in Deep River Township, Guilford County, N.C. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina in history and government in 1929. In 1930, he joined the UNC History Department faculty and remained there until his retirement in 1975, during which time he developed a syllabus for the General College's freshman interdisciplinary course and 20th-century European, Russian, Eastern European, and Far Eastern history courses. He also assisted in strengthening the History Department's graduate program.

Carl Hamilton Pegg was born on 13 April 1905 in a farmhouse near the center of Deep River Township, Guilford County, N.C. He attended Millwood Common School from age six to twelve, skipped three years and then spent two years in prep school. He entered the University of North Carolina in 1923, completing work for a Ph.D. in European history and government in 1929.

Pegg taught at the University of Mississippi in fall and spring 1929-1930, during which time he lived in a boarding house adjacent to the William Faulkner home. He remembered seeing William and his father, who was bursar of the University, frequently and recalled playing ball with William in the late afternoons and teaching William's brother. Pegg spent the summer 1930 studying and traveling in Europe.

Pegg joined the UNC History Department faculty in 1930 and remained there until his retirement in 1975. In 1934-1935, he developed a syllabus for the General College's freshman interdisciplinary course. The widely diverse bibliographic needs of the new course prompted the University Librarian to set aside a large reading room for General College students. By the mid-1940s, the room had evolved into the social sciences reading room, stocked with over 50,000 volumes and heavily used by all undergraduates. This collection was eventually housed in its own building as the Undergraduate Library.

Beginning in the late 1930s, Pegg developed 20th-century European, Russian, Eastern European, and Far Eastern history courses, and assisted in strengthening the History Department's graduate program. He was chair of the Department from 1960 to 1965 and directed over 50 M.A. theses and 35 Ph.D. dissertations.

Pegg helped found the Southern Historical Association in the 1930s and spoke at its first meeting in 1935. He also helped organize the European section within the Association and served as its chair in the late 1950s.

Pegg's chief teaching and writing focus was 20th-century Europe. Among Pegg's major publications were American Society and the Changing World (with L. M. Brooks and others, 1947); Contemporary Europe in World Focus (1956); and Evolution of the European Idea, 1914-1932 (1983). After retirement, he compiled and published History and Historians in the University of North Carolina, 1795-1950 (1990). He was also well published in historical journals both in Europe and in the United States.

Pegg was an ardent conservationist. He and his wife Eleanor owned and cared for several forested tracts in Orange and Chatham counties, N.C.

[Adapted in part from an autobiographical essay that Carl Pegg wrote sometime after 1983.]