George McAfee "Mac" McCune ( ; June 16, 1908 – November 5, 1948) was an American scholar of Korea. He was one of the creators and namesakes of the McCune–Reischauer system for the romanization of Korean, along with Edwin O. Reischauer. Significant work on the system was done by Korean linguists Choe Hyeon-bae, , and . McCune taught Korean history and language at Occidental College and the University of California, Berkeley.

Early life and education

Born in Pyongyang, Korea, George McAfee McCune was the son of Helen McAfee and George Shannon McCune, American Presbyterian educational missionaries who had sailed to the country in 1905. Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910.

The McCunes worked in Pyongyang and Sinch'ŏn. The young George had a younger brother, Shannon, and two sisters, Catherine and Margaret.

McCune moved to the United States to attend Huron College in South Dakota, where his father was president,

McCune returned to the US and completed his MA at Occidental College in 1935. He started doctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley. He was granted a Mills Traveling Fellowship to continue his studies in Korea. He spent a year working on the official Yi dynasty chronicles in connection with his dissertation. In 1941, he received his PhD from Berkeley.

thumb|George M. McCune dressed in Korean clothing alongside his sister Anna, 1915

In 1939, he and Edwin O. Reischauer, also an East Asian scholar, published their McCune–Reischauer romanization of the Korean language, which was widely used for decades.

Marriage and family

He married Evelyn Margaret Becker (1907-2012) in Honolulu, Hawaii, on April 22, 1933. She was a child of American Methodist missionary parents and also had been born in Pyongyang. They had met there while both were visiting their respective families. She was teaching at the Seoul Foreign School in Seoul, Korea, after getting her BA at University of California, Berkeley.

They became engaged and then married during a crisis because of McCune's health problems; his heart had been weakened by the rheumatic fever that he suffered from as a child.

Career

McCune began teaching Korean language and history at Occidental College, where he taught from 1939 to 1946, advancing from the rank of Instructor to Associate Professor.

References

  • George M. McCune's OSS file