George W. McDaniel

Executive Director, Drayton Hall

George W. McDaniel is executive director of Drayton Hall, a historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Charleston, S.C.  He holds a B.A. in history from the University of the South, an M.A.T. in history from Brown University, and a Ph.D. in history from Duke University.  He is a former Peace Corps Volunteer (Togo, 1968) and a veteran of the First Infantry Division (Vietnam, 1969-70).  He was a Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution and became director of museums and education at the Atlanta History Center.  He has served on the Social Studies Curriculum Frameworks Committee for the S.C. Department of Education and as chairman of the Ashley River Historic District Preservation Coalition. 

He currently serves on the steering committees of the International Museum of African American History and of the South Carolina Teaching American History project.  He is the author of Hearth and Home: Preserving a People’s Culture (1982) and numerous articles or reviews in History News, Public History News, the Journal of American History, Winterthur Portfolio, the South Carolina Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, and other publications.  He has often served as faculty or presenter for workshops and conferences on museums, history, education, and historic preservation.

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