According to Jacques Dalibard, a professor at McGill University School of Architecture, "with James Marston Fitch,[4] I cannot think of two people who had more influence on historic preservation in North America.
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."
"[2][9]: 1 [10] 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.
[11] 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.
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.
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.
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.
[15][16] 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.
[17] 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.
In 1970, Peterson established the European Traveling Summer School for Restorationists that allowed architects to view and participate in restoration projects outside the United States.
Other topics that Peterson covered included the early architecture of the Mississippi River valley, the use of iron in roofs, the development of the I-beam, and the recovery of the "lost" history of cement and concrete construction.
"[27] From his start with the National Park Service in the 1930s, Peterson continually advocated for training of architects in the proper restoration of buildings that respected their history, technology, and authenticity.
"[28]: 4 Architects could not simply learn from books and drawings, but had to experience an old building in all its unrestored, disheveled, shabbiness: "The man who doesn't get his hands dirty on the job will never know enough.