Fr. McDaniel Bio

St. Ambrose University Professor of History Rev. George McDaniel is a respected priest and noted historian. His most recent project, writing the quasquicentennial history of St. Ambrose University - "A Great and Lasting Beginning: The First 125 Years of St. Ambrose University" - involved more than three years of research and writing.

Fr. McDaniel first came to St. Ambrose as a student in 1963, completing his degree in history and philosophy in 1966. From there, Mt. St. Bernard Seminary and Aquinas Institute of Theology in Dubuque, Iowa, and Catholic University in Washington, D.C., prepared him for his ordination as a Catholic priest in 1970. Master's degrees in theology and American history from Aquinas Institute of Theology and the University of Iowa, respectively, soon followed, as did a doctorate in American history from the University of Iowa.

An Ambrosian at heart, Fr. McDaniel returned to these hallowed halls to stay in 1974, serving as Dean of Students and Associate Director of Development before joining the history faculty in 1977, where he rose through the ranks to Professor of History in 1993.

Fr. McDaniel specializes in local history and has won numerous awards for his work. In 1997, the State Historical Society awarded him the Thorne-Aldrich Award for his article "Catholic Action in Davenport: St. Ambrose College and the League for Social Justice," which the Annals of Iowa published the year before. Two years prior, the Iowa Historical Society recognized his critically acclaimed political biography, Smith Wildman Brookhart: Iowa's Renegade Republican, with its Benjamin Shambaugh Award as the most significant Iowa history book of the year.

His writings also appear in Annals of Iowa, The Palimpsest, Encyclopedia USA and most recently in Catholic Education, A Journal of Inquiry and Practice. He recently participated in the Council of Independent College's Getty Grant Program, which surveyed the historical architecture and design at private colleges across the country, and was twice named a Herbert Hoover Scholar by the Hoover Library Association.

Fr. McDaniel has served on the board of trustees and as president of the State Historical Society of Iowa and is currently a member of the board of trustees of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association.