A specialist in the history of the American South, Clement Eaton received his education from the University of North Carolina, where he was president of Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated in 1919. He earned his doctorate from Harvard University in 1929 and taught for a year at Clark University before accepting a position at Lafayette College, where he taught from 1931 until 1946. In that year he took a position as professor of history at the University of Kentucky,where he was named Distinguished Professor in 1956 and served as Hallam Professor from 1961 until his retirement in 1970.